&,4 



■'>Jt. 



■■^^i 






^i'^:*;\^. 






.:*-j'S>i'V''- ■ .■■ ..<"■' 










Class _ 
Book. 

Copyright N^. 






COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE ART OF LANDSCAPE- 
GARDENING 




w 



u 



cC 



The Art of 
LANDSCAPE 
GARDENING 

By f|umpf)rp S^eptOn Esq, 

Including his SKETCHES AND HINTS 
ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING and 
THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LAND- 
SCAPE GARDENING 

Edited by JOHN NOLEN, A.M. 

Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Cbc KitJcrstUe press;. CambriKp 

MDCCCCVII 



UCPARY of CONGRESS 
T4ro C'.oles ftsseivecf 

NGViib 1907 

^Cenvnjfhf Frfrv 

JuA^ 2 7 (^oy 

CLASS A <Xc,: fftt. 

/ S0L{3(^ 

COPY u. 






COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November iqcfj 



'This is the first volume of a series of classics in 
Landscape Architecture which has been under- 
taken at the suggestion and with the cooperation 
of the American Society of Landscape Architects 



Table of Contents 



INTRODUCTION xv 

SKETCHES AND HINTS ON LAND- 
SCAPE GARDENING i 

Preface. Some General Remarks about 

Landscape Gardening 3 

Chap. I, Different Characters and Situa- 
tions J 

Chap. II. Buildings ly 

Chap. III. Proper Situations for a House 23 

Chap. IV. Water 32 

Chap. V. Large Private Places 38 

Chap. VI. Forinal Gardening 43 

Chap. VII. Approaches 49 

Chap. VIII. Affnity betwixt Painting and 

Gardening 5 3 

Chap. IX. Sources of Pleasure in Land- 
scape Gardening 58 



viii Contents 

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF 

LANDSCAPE GARDENING 63 

Preface. Some General Observations on 

Taste 6 5 

Chap. I. Introduction — General Principles 

— Utility — Scale — Examples 
of Comparative Proportion — Use 

of Perspective 7 1 

Chap. II. Ground apparently altered by the 
Situation of the Spectator — Pe- 
fectionsfrom the Surface of Water 
explained and applied — T>ifferent 
Effects of Light on Different 
Objects 84 

Chap. III. Water — Its General Treatment 

— Art must deceive to imitate 
Nature — Water at Wentworth 
described — A River easier to 
imitate than a Lake 91 

Chap. IV. Planting — Immediate and Future 
Effect — Clumps — Groups — 
Masses — The Bj'ow sing-Line de- 
scribed — Combination of Masses to 
produce Great Woods — Character 
and Shape of Ground to be studied 

— Outline of New Plantations i o 3 



Contents 



IX 



Chap. V. Woods — Intricacy — Variety 

— A Belt — On thinning 
Woods — Leaving Groups — 
Opening a Lawn in Great 
Woods 1 1 6 

Chap. VI. Fences — The Boundary — 'The 

Separation 1 27 

Chap. VII. Farm and Park Distinct Ob- 
jects — Beauty and Profit seldom 
compatible 136 

Chap. VIII. Pleasure-Grounds — Flower- 
Gar dens — Greenhouses and Con- 
servatories — Various Modes of 
attaching them to a House 142 

Chap. IX. Landscape Gardening and Paint- 
ing — Pictures may imitate Na- 
ture, but Nature is not to copy 
Pictures 148 

Chap. X. Ancient and Modern Gardening 

— Change of Style — Art and 
Nature considered 160 

Chap. XI. Endless Variety of Situation and 
Character — First Impressions 

— Roads — Entrances — Adap- 
tation of Ornamental Buildings 171 



X Contents 

Chap. XII. Architecture and Gardening in- 
separable — Forms and Arrange- 
ments of Different Eras — 
Change in Customs alters Uses 
of Rooms 1 90 

Chap. XIII. Formation of a new Place — 
Application of Gardening and 
Architecture — Characteristic 
Architecture — How far it should 
prevail internally 208 

Chap. XIV. Conclusion — Concerning Colour 
— Difficulty of Comparisons be- 
twixt Art and Nature 2 1 J 

NOTES 221 



List of Plates 



Frontispiece. View from Reptons Cottage in Es- 
sex {before and after improvements) 

Plate I. Illustrating Classic and Gothic Ar- 

chitecture in contrast with round- 
headed and pointed trees 20 

Plate II. 'J'horesby {from a photograph by 

T". IV. Sears) 23 

Plate III. 'T'he effect of removing trees in the 

oblique view of an avenue at Lang- 
ley Park 26 

Plate IV. "Thoresby — 1'he Deer Park {from 

a photograph by 1". W. Sears) 3 8 

Plate V. Castle Hill, shewing the effect of 

cattle to mark the extent of a lawn 
which slopes from the eye 42 

Plate VI. Lathom — View from the house, 

shewing the effect of removing the 
pond, which is so near the eye that 
its glare prevents the lawn from 
being seen beyond it 46 

Plate VII. T'he "Thames, from Pur ley: Morning 

The Thames, from Pur ley : Evening 8 8 



xn 



List of Plates 



Plate VIII. 

Plate IX. 
Plate X. 

Plate XI. 
Plate XII. 
Plate XIII. 
Plate XIV. 
Plate XV. 
Plate XVI. 

Plate XVII. 
Plate XVIII. 
Plate XIX. 
Plate XX. 
Plate XXI. 
Plate XXII. 



Clumber House [from a photograph 

by T. W. Sears) 91 

Water at Wentworth^ Yorkshire 100 

Sherwood Forest [from a photo- 
graph by 1'. W . Sears) 103 

'The Browsing-Line to8 

View from the house at Shardeloes 118 

Map of Bulstrode \io 

Farm and Park 1 3 8 

Flower-Garden^ Valley Field 144 

Blaize Castle J enlivened by a cottage 

in the distance 182 

Plans of houses of various dates 192 

Michel Grove y Sussex 196 

Ash ton Court 208 

Map of Bay ham 210 

General View of Bay ham i\i 

Plan of Bay ham 214 



List of Figures 



Fig. I. Illustrating the shape of the ground at 

Stanmore 8 

•Fig. 1. Illustrating the shape of the ground at 

Brandsbury 9 

Fig. 3. Sections to shew the manner of adapting 

houses to different natural shapes of ground 29 

Fig. 4. Diagram to shew the use of the human 

figure as a scale for measuring objects 73 

Fig. 5. Diagram 76 

Fig. 6. Diagram 78 

Fig. 7. View from Wentworth House ^ before it 
was improved^ and while the improve- 
ments were going forward 80 

Fig. 8. View from Wentworth House ^ shewing 
the effect intended to be produced by the 
proposed alterations 82 

Fig. 9. Diagram 85 

Fig. 10. Diagram 87 

Fig. 1 1. Diagram 88 

Fig. 12. Diagram 88 



xiv List of Figures 

Fig. 13. Artificial Scenery 105 

Fig. 14. Natural Scenery 106 

Fig. 15. Diagram no 

Fig. 16. Diagram no 

Fig. 17. Diagram 133 

Fig. 18. Diagram 134 

Fig. 19. Diagram 134 

Fig. 20. Diagram 135 

Fig. 21. ^yi-^wd" in the grounds at Attingham 155 

Fig. 11. Stoke Park^ Herefordshire 180 

Fig. 23. Gothic Cottage 181 

Fig. 24. Examples of a plan for an extended front 

on the steep side of a hill 202 

Fig. 25. Villa at Br entry Hilly shewing specimens 
of economy with compactness adapted to its 

situation^ character ^ and uses 203 

Fig. 26. Ground-plan of Villa at Br entry Hill 204 

Fig. 27. Diagram 24.6 

Fig. 28. Diagram 251 



Introduction 



TJUMPHRY REPTON was born at Bury 
-■- -■- Saint Edmunds, England, May 2, 1752, 
and died at Harestreet, Essex, March 24, 18 18. 
The period covered by his life is in many respects 
the most important in the history of landscape 
gardening. It is true that the reaction from the 
absurdities and excesses of formal gardening and 
the awakening to the beauty and value of a natural 
rural landscape came before his time. Addison 
and Pope were the most influential of the literary 
advocates of this great change, and William Kent 
and his successor " Capability " Brown were the 
practical men who applied the new ideas to the 
country-places of England, often indeed ruthlessly 
destroying formal grounds of great beauty in the 
zeal of a somewhat unbalanced reaction. But it 
is to the period of Repton and the work of Rep- 
ton himself that we must look for the sound 
and rational development of the so-called land- 
scape school of England, a school whose influence 
spread rapidly to the Continent of Europe and 
whose principles still control the treatment of 
large areas in the informal or naturalistic style. 

This change in taste was not confined to gar- 
dening. It manifested itself in all the artistic 



xvl Introduction 



expressions of the period. It was due to the move- 
ment called "romanticism," the renaissance of 
wonder. In almost innumerable ways the world ac- 
quired a new power of appeal and response to man. 
The glory of lake and mountain and meadow, 
the exquisite grace of childhood, the dignity and 
worth of manhood, the intrinsic interest of the 
commonplace, — to these and to other influences 
of a similar character mankind became sensitive. 
Romanticism was in truth an extraordinary devel- 
opment of imaginative sensibility, and the centre 
of the movement in England lay in its various, 
intimate, and subtle interpretations of the world 
of nature. Through it nature became to man an 
inexhaustible resource. Therefore the conditions 
were ready and the time was ripe for such ideals 
of landscape gardening as those held and advo- 
cated by Repton. 

The work of Repton as landscape gardener is 
one of the most notable achievements in that pro- 
fession. He has to his credit the creation, trans- 
formation, or improvement of over two hundred 
important places. His clients were in all parts of 
England and included men of nearly every degree 
and station. And to appreciate the scope of Rep- 
ton's practice we must call to mind the extent 
and character and marvellous beauty of the typical 
English country-place of the eighteenth century. 
It included not only all that is best in the private 
places of our own time, but also the adequate setting 



Introduction xvii 



for buildings of great size, corresponding to public 
buildings in the present day, and the creation of 
the type of scenery that is characteristic of mod- 
ern "rural" or "country " parks. Without doubt 
the most suggestive ideals for the public parks of 
our own great cities, ideals that have impressed 
themselves upon the most distinguished landscape 
architects since Repton's day, are to be found in 
the " park " or informal pleasure-grounds of a well- 
to-do Englishman's estate. These "parks" were 
extensive in area, usually including from one to 
a thousand acres, and possessed all the interest and 
charm of beautiful natural scenery enhanced and 
perfected by discriminating art. 

Repton's knowledge of nature and command 
of the processes of art were not superficial. Nature 
he knew at first hand. He was himself a nature- 
lover. Before becoming a landscape gardener he 
was a "country gentleman." But he was also an 
artist, gifted with what he repeatedly refers to 
as "good taste"; and by study and experience 
he added to his natural gifts. His profession to 
him was primarily an opportunity for design, — 
design based alike upon an accurate knowledge 
of the peculiar local situation and conditions and 
upon the fundamental principles of art and the 
laws of nature. He knew well the meaning and 
value of such art principles as are suggested by 
the words proportion, variety, intricacy, harmony, 
and unity. One quotation will illustrate his point 



xviii Introduction 



of view. Speaking of intricacy he says : ** The eye, 
or rather the mind, is never long dehghted with 
that which it surveys without effort, at a single 
glance, and therefore sees without exciting curios- 
ity or interest. It is not the vast extent of lawn, the 
great expanse of water, or the long range of wood, 
that yields satisfaction ; for these, if shapeless, or, 
which is the same thing, if their exact shape, how- 
ever large, be too apparent, only attract our notice 
by the space they occupy; to fill that space with 
objects of beauty, to delight the eye after it has 
been struck, to fix the attention where it has been 
caught, to prolong astonishment into admiration, 
are purposes not unworthy of the greatest designs." 
He could not be accused of mere imitation, for, 
instead of attempting to reproduce the effects of 
nature in a mechanical or artificial way, he aimed 
rather to put in action the causes by which those 
effects are produced. Then, as he said, the effects 
would be natural. But Repton was also a practi- 
cal man. He appreciated the principle of utility. 
He, like his American successor, Olmsted, had 
no sympathy with a design that did not provide 
adequately and frankly for the plain necessities 
of human living. Half-hearted compromises did 
not meet his favour ; nevertheless he took pains 
to reconcile these necessary and artificial features 
with the artistic aims of the design as a whole. 

Repton's most permanent contribution to his 
art, however, is to be found not in his works of 



Introduction xix 



landscape gardening, but in his writings on that 
subject. Neither among his predecessors nor suc- 
cessors has there been a man of equal genius and 
experience who has left such a substantial body of 
opinion behind him. This is the result partly 
of his desire permanently to lift his chosen pro- 
fession to a higher plane, and partly of his sys- 
tematic methods of work, which made it possible 
for him, even in the midst of a very active practice, 
to prepare material for publication. He speaks of 
his writings as " observations tending to establish 
fixed principles in the art of landscape garden- 
ing.'* His profession, he contended, should not be 
founded upon caprice and fashion. This view is 
well expressed in his dedication to King George III 
of his first book, " Sketches and Hints on Land- 
scape Gardening," in which he says: " If it should 
appear that, instead of displaying new doctrines or 
furnishing novel ideas, this volume serves rather 
>by a new method to elucidate old established 
principles, and to confirm long received opinions, 
I can only plead in my excuse that true taste, 
in every art, consists more in adapting tried ex- 
pedients to peculiar circumstances than in that 
inordinate thirst after novelty, the characteristic 
of uncultivated minds, which from the facility of 
inventing wild theories, without experience, are 
apt to suppose that taste is displayed by novelty, 
genius by innovation, and that every change must 
necessarily tend to improvement." 



XX Introduction 



Repton's important writings are based upon 
his unique " Red Books." When asked for his 
opinion concerning the improvement of a place 
he was in the habit of deUvering it in writing, 
bound in a small book, which contained maps, 
plans, and sketches to explain and illustrate the 
work or alterations proposed. This he called the 
" Red Book " of the place. More than two hun- 
dred such books were prepared by him in the 
course of his extensive practice. Therefore his 
published works, comprising as they do the most 
valuable material of the " Red Books," are not 
mere theories of landscape gardening ; they re- 
present the permanent results of his experience. 
Not only from their substance are they of value, 
but from their form also. They were written and 
illustrated not for his professional colleagues, but 
for his clients. Thus they have a wider appeal. 
They are free from technical terms and from 
small and relatively unimportant details. The 
only limitation upon the value of these writings 
is an inevitable scrappiness and repetition due to 
their origin and the conditions under which they 
were prepared for publication. As he quaintly 
observes in the preface to his most valuable book, 
"The Theory and Practice of Landscape Gar- 
dening," "the whole of this work has been 
written in a carriage during professional journeys 
from one place to another, and being seldom more 
than three days together in one place, the diffi- 



Introduction xxi 



culty of producing this volume, such as it is, can 
hardly be conceived by those who enjoy the 
blessings of stationary retirement or a permanent 
home," To an unusual degree Repton's books 
state his own theory, relate his own practice, 
record his own ideals. They are the basis upon 
which he wished posterity to judge him, for he 
says : " It is rather upon my opinions in writing 
than on the partial and imperfect manner in which 
my plans have sometimes been executed, that 
I wish my fame to be established." The present 
volume is published to supply the demand for 
Repton's counsel. It is issued under the title of 
"The Art of Landscape Gardening," and contains 
his two best works : " Sketches and Hints on 
Landscape Gardening," published in 1795, and 
"The Theory and Practice of Landscape Gar- 
dening," published in 1803. These two books, 
reprinted and illustrated in modern form and 
edited the better to serve modern conditions, 
constitute, it is believed, one of the most valuable 
works in English upon the principles of laying- 
out ground. 

To make his designs intelligible Repton found 
that a mere map or plan was insufficient; it could 
no more convey an idea of the landscape than the 
ground-plan of a house could of its elevation. 
To remedy this deficiency he invented a method 
of showing the proposed improvements by means 
of two illustrations or slides, as he called them. 



xxii Introduction 



one imposed upon the other. These were usually 
in colour, the upper one representing the scene 
as it existed and the under one the scene as pro- 
posed. His object, he said, was " not to produce 
a book of pictures, but to furnish some hints for 
establishing the fact that true taste in landscape 
gardening, as well as in all the other polite arts, 
is not an accidental effect, operating on the out- 
ward senses, but an appeal to the understanding, 
which is able to compare, to separate, and to com- 
bine the various sources of pleasure derived from 
external objects, and to trace them to some pre- 
existing cause in the structure of the human 
mind." It did not seem feasible nor indeed neces- 
sary to include in this volume all the illustra- 
tions in Repton's works, but those shown have 
been selected with discrimination to enforce the 
main points in his philosophy of landscape art. 
These are supplemented by a few recently taken 
photographs of English country-places, the im- 
provement of which was outlined over a century 
ago by Repton himself. 

Repton and his work occupy a unique and per- 
manently important place in the history of land- 
scape gardening. He came at a time of significant 
development in his profession, and by his native 
genius and attainments he secured the patronage 
of all England. He had opportunity to work out 
his ideas and ideals under unusually congenial 
conditions. Le Notre himself, with the support 



Introduction xxiil 



and favour of Louis XIV, scarcely surpassed him 
in opportunity. He became the medium for the 
practical expression of all that was best in the 
" new " gardening,and he showed himself capable 
at the same time of respecting and preserving 
what was most worthy in the old or formal style. 
He was not an iconoclast. His taste was catholic. 
In discussing the two schools he says : " I do not 
profess to follow either Le Notre or Brown, but, 
selecting beauties from the style of each, to adopt 
so much of the grandeur of the former as may 
accord with a palace, and so much of the grace 
of the latter as miay call forth the charms of nat- 
ural landscape. Each has its proper situation, and 
good taste will make fashion subservient to good 
sense." Repton possessed exquisite refinement of 
taste, without reaching the point of fastidiousness. 
He displayed considerable ingenuity in meeting 
peculiar problems, and a sympathetic knowledge 
of the necessities of a convenient and comfortable 
home. His pleasant personality, goodness of heart, 
and amiability undoubtedly helped his professional 
success. But the most significant contribution that 
remains for this and subsequent generations is his 
careful and complete statement in writing of the 
principles that he found fundamental in his long 
and instructive practice as a landscape gardener. 

John Nolen. 
Cambridge, Mass., June, 1907. 



I 

SKETCHES AND HINTS ON 
LANDSCAPE-GARDENING 



Preface 



TO 

SKETCHES AND HINTS 



TO improve the scenery of a country, and to dis- 
play its native beauties with advantage, is an art 
which originated in England, and has therefore been 
called English gardening; yet as this expression is not 
sufficiently appropriate, especially since gardening, in 
its more confined sense of horticulture, has been like- 
wise brought to the greatest perfection in this country, 
I have adopted the term landscape gardening, as 
most proper, because the art can only be advanced and 
perfected by the united powers of the landscape painter 
and the practical gardener. The former must conceive 
a plan, which the latter may be able to execute ; for 
though a painter may represent a beautiful landscape 
on his canvas, and even surpass nature by the com- 
bination of her choicest materials, yet the luxuriant 
imagination of the painter must be subjected to the 
gardener's practical knowledge in planting, digging, 
and moving earth; that the simplest and readiest means 
of accomplishing each design may be suggested; since 
it is not by vast labour, or great expense, that nature is 
generally to be improved ; on the contrary, 

" Insult not Nature with absurd expense. 

Nor spoil her simple charms by vain pretence ; 
Weigh well the subject, be with caution bold. 
Profuse of genius, not profuse of gold." 



4 Preface 

If the knowledge of painting be insufficient without 
that of gardening, on the other hand, the mere gardener, 
without some skill in painting, will seldom be able to 
form a just idea of effects before they are carried into 
execution. This faculty of foreknowing effects consti- 
tutes the master in every branch of the polite arts ; and 
can only be the result of a correct eye, a ready concep- 
tion, and a fertility of invention, to which the professor 
adds practical experience. 

But of this art, painting and gardening are not the 
only foundations: the artist must possess a competent 
knowledge of surveying, mechanics, hydraulics, agri- 
culture, botany, and the general principles of architect- 
ure. It can hardly be expected that a man bred and 
constantly living in the kitchen-garden should possess 
all these requisites ; yet because the immortal Brown ' 
was originally a kitchen-gardener, it is too common to 
find every man who can handle a rake or spade pre- 
tending to give his opinion on the most difficult points 
of improvement. It may perhaps be asked from whence 
Mr. Brown derived his knowledge ? — the answer is 
obvious : that, being at first patronised by a few persons 
of rank and acknowledged good taste, he acquired, 
by degrees, the faculty of prejudging effects; partly 
from repeated trials, and partly from the experience 
of those to whose conversation and intimacy his genius 
had introduced him : and although he could not design, 
himself, there exist many pictures of scenery, made 
under his instruction, which his imagination alone had 
painted. 

Since the art of landscape gardening requires the 
combination of certain portions of knowledge in so 
many different arts, it is no wonder that the professors 



Preface 5 

of each should respectively suggest what is most ob- 
vious to their own experience ; and thus the painter, 
the kitchen-gardener, the engineer, the land-agent, and 
the architect will frequently propose expedients differ- 
ent from those which the landscape gardener may think 
proper to adopt. The difficulties which I have occa- 
sionally experienced from these contending interests 
induced me to make a complete digest of each subject 
proposed to my consideration, affixing the reasons on 
which my opinion was founded, and stating the com- 
parative advantages to the whole of adopting or re- 
jecting certain parts of any plan. To make my designs 
intelligible, I found that a mere map was insufficient; 
as being no more capable of conveying an idea of the 
landscape than the ground-plan of a house does of its 
elevation. To remedy this deficiency, I delivered my 
opinions in writing, that they might not be miscon- 
ceived or misrepresented ; and I invented the peculiar 
kind of slides to my sketches, some of which are here 
reproduced. 

Such drawings, to shew the proposed effects, can 
be useful but in a very few instances ; yet I have often 
remarked, with some mortification, that it is the only 
part of my labours which the common observer has 
time or leisure to examine ; although it is the least part 
of that perfection in the art, to which these hints and 
sketches will, I hope, contribute. 

I confess that the great object of my ambition is 
not merely to produce a book of pictures, but to furnish 
some hints for establishing the fact that true taste in 
landscape gardening, as well as in all the other polite 
arts, is not an accidental effect, operating on the out- 
ward senses, but an appeal to the understanding, which 



Preface 



is able to compare, to separate, and to combine, the 
various sources of pleasure derived from external 
objects, and to trace them to some pre-existing causes 
in the structure of the human mind. 



Chapter I 

Different Characters and Situations 



ALL rational improvement of grounds is, necessar- 
ily, founded on a due attention to the character 
and situation of the place to be improved: the former 
teaches what is advisable, the latter what is possible, 
to be done; while the extent of the premises has less 
influence than is generally imagined ; as, however large 
or small it may be, one of the fundamental principles 
of landscape gardening is to disguise the real boundary. 

In deciding on the character of any place, some at- 
tention must be given to its situation with respect to 
other places; to the natural shape of the ground on 
which the house is or may be built; to the size and 
style of the house, and even to the rank of its possessor ; 
together with the use which he intends to make of it, 
whether as a mansion or constant residence, a sporting- 
seat, or a villa ; which particular objects require distinct 
and opposite treatment. To give some idea of the vari- 
ety that abounds in the characters and situations of 
different places, it will be proper to insert a few speci- 
mens from different subjects: I shall begin this work, 
therefore, by a remarkable instance of situation, only 
two miles distant from the capital. 

Brandsbury ^ is situated on a broad swelling hill, the 
ground gently falling from the house (which looks on 
rich distances) in almost every direction. Except a very 
narrow slip of plantation to the north, two large elms 
near the house, and a few in hedge-rows at a distance. 



8 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

the spot is destitute of trees : the first object, therefore, 
must be to shelter the house by home shrubberies ; as 
on land of such value extensive plantations would be 
an unpardonable want of economy. 

No general plan of embellishment can, perhaps, be 
devised which is more eligible than that so often 
adopted by Mr. Brown, viz. to surround a paddock 
with a fence, enclosing a shrubbery and gravel walk 
round the premises : this idea was happily executed by 
him at Mr. Drummond's delightful place near Stan- 
more ; but as an attempt has been made to follow the 
same plan at Brandsbury, without considering the dif- 
ference of the two situations, I shall beg leave to explain 
myself by the following sections and remarks. 

Where the natural shape of the ground is concave, 
as that at Stanmore [Fig. i], nothing can be more desir- 



TheP^e ThePale 




Fig. I. Illustrating the shape of the ground at Stanmore. 

able than to enrich the horizon by plantations on the 
highest ground, and to flood the lowest by a lake or 
river : in such a situation the most pleasing scenes will 
be within the pale, looking on the opposite rising bank 
fringed with trees, or occasionally catching distant views 
over or beyond the fence. 

On the contrary, if the natural shape be convex, any 
fence crossing the declivity must intercept those distant 
views which an eminence should command, and which 



Different Characters and Situations 9 

at Brandsbury are so rich and varied that nothing can 
justify their total exclusion. A walk round a paddock 
in such a situation, enclosed by a lofty fence, would be 
a continual source of mortification ; as every step would 
excite a wish either to peep through, or look over, the 
pale of confinement. 

ThePale ^® TliePale 




ing the shape of the ground at Brandsbury. 



Where all the surrounding country presents the most 
beautiful pasture-ground, instead of excluding the vast 
herds of cattle which enliven the scene, I recommend 
that only a sufficient quantity of land round the house 
be enclosed to shelter and screen the barns, stables, 
kitchen-garden, offices, and other useful but unpleasing 
objects ; and within this enclosure, though not contain- 
ing more than ten or twelve acres, I propose to conduct 
walks through shrubberies, plantations, and small se- 
questered lawns, sometimes winding into rich internal 
scenery, and sometimes breaking out upon the most 
pleasing points for commanding distant prospects : at 
such places the pale may be sunk and concealed, while 
in others it will be so hid by plantation that the twelve 
acres thus enclosed will appear considerably larger than 
the sixty acres originally intended to be surrounded by 
a park pale. 

The present character of Rivenhall Place is evidently 
gloomy and sequestered, with the appearance of being 
low and damp. The interference of art in former days 
has indeed rendered the improvement and restoration 



lo The Art of Landscape Gardening 

of its natural beauties a work of some labour ; yet, by 
availing ourselves of those natural beauties, and dis- 
placing some of the encumbrances of art, the character of 
the place may be made picturesque and cheerful, and 
the situation, which is not really damp, may be so man- 
aged as to lose that appearance. The first object is to 
remove the stables, and all the trees and bushes in the 
low meadow, which may then with ease be converted 
into a pleasing piece of water, in the front of the house. 
In its present state, two tall elms are the first objects 
that attract our notice ; from the tops of these trees the 
eye measures downwards to the house, that is very in- 
distinctly seen amidst the confusion of bushes and build- 
ings with which it is encumbered ; and the present water 
appearing above the house, we necessarily conclude that 
the house stands low : but instead of this confusion, let 
water be the leading object, and the eye will naturally 
measure upwards to the house, and we shall then pro- 
nounce that it no longer appears in a low situation. 

However delightful a romantic or mountainous 
country may appear to a traveller, the more solid ad- 
vantages of a flat one to live in are universally allowed; 
and in such a country, if the gentle swell of t,he ground 
occasionally presents the eye with hanging woods, dip- 
ping their foliage in an expanse of silvery lake, or softly 
gliding river, we no longer ask for the abrupt precipice 
or foaming cataract. Livermere Park possesses ample 
lawns, rich woods, and an excellent supply of good-col- 
oured water : its greatest defect is a want of clothing near 
the house, and round that part of the water where the 
banks are flat ; yet, in other parts, the wood and -water 
are most beautifully connected with each other. 

Milton Park. Where the ground naturally pre- 
sents very little inequality of surface, a great appearance 



Different Characters and Situations ii 

of extent is rather disgusting than pleasing, and little 
advantage is gained by attempts to let in distant objects ; 
yet there is such infinite beauty to be produced by judi- 
cious management of the home scenery, as may well 
compensate the want of prospect. There is always great 
cheerfulness in a view on a flat lawn, well stocked with 
cattle, if it be properly bounded by a wood at a distance, 
neither too far off to lessen its importance nor too near 
to act as a confinement to the scene ; and which contrib- 
utes also to break those straight lines that are the only 
causes of disgust in a flat situation. Uneven ground 
may be more striking as a picture and more interesting 
to the stranger's eye, it may be more bold or magni- 
ficent or romantic, but the character of cheerfulness is 
pecuHar to the plain. Whether this eff'ect be produced 
by the apparent ease of communication, or by the larger 
proportion of sky which enters into the landscape, or 
by the difi^erent manner in which cattle form themselves 
into groups on a plain, or on a sloping bank, I confess 
I am at a loss to decide : all three causes may, perhaps, 
contribute to produce that degree of cheerfulness which 
every one must have observed in the scenery of Milton. 
Hasells Hall. There has hardly been proposed to 
my consideration a spot in which both situation and 
character have undergone a greater change than at 
Hasells Hall. From the former mode of approaching 
the house, especially from the Cambridge side, a stranger 
could hardly suppose there was any unequal ground in 
the park : even to the south, where the ground natur- 
ally falls towards a deep valley, the mistaken interference 
of art, in former days, had bolstered it up by flat bowl- 
ing-greens, and formal terraces ; while the declivity was 
so thickly planted as entirely to choke up the lowest 
ground, and shut out all idea of inequality. The first 



12 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

object of improvement is to point out those beautiful 
shapes in the ground which so copiously prevail in sev- 
eral parts of this park ; the second, is to change its 
character of gloom and sombre dampness to a more 
cheerful shade ; and the third, is to mark the whole 
with that degree of importance and extent which the 
size of the house and the surrounding territory demand. 

CuLFORD. The house stands on the side of a hill, 
gently sloping towards the south ; but nearly one half 
of the natural depth of the valley has been destroyed 
to obtain an expanse of water, which, in so flat a situa- 
tion, I think ought not to have been attempted ; and 
I am certain, by proper management of the water, the 
house would appear to stand on a sufficient eminence 
above it, and not so low as the present surface of the 
water seems to indicate ; since the eye is always dis- 
posed to measure from the surface of neighbouring 
water, in forming a judgement of the height of any 
situation. 

Crewe Hall. In judging the character of any place 
to which I am a stranger, I very minutely observe the 
first impression it makes upon my mind, and, compar- 
ing it with subsequent impressions, I inquire into the 
causes which may have rendered my first judgement 
erroneous. I confess there has hardly occurred to me 
an instance where I have experienced so great a fluc- 
tuation of opinion as in this place. I was led, from 
a consideration of the antiquity of the Crewe family in 
Cheshire, to expect a certain degree of magnificence ; 
but my first view of the house being from an unfavour- 
able point, and at too great a distance to judge of its 
real magnitude, I conceived it to be very small ; and, 
measuring the surrounding objects by this false stand- 
ard, the whole place lost that importance which I after- 



Different Characters and Situations 13 

wards found it assume on a closer examination. In 
former days the dignity of a house was supposed to 
increase in proportion to the quantity of walls and 
buildings with which it was surrounded ; to these 
were sometimes added tall ranks of trees, whose shade 
contributed to the gloom at that time held essential 
to magnificence. 

Modern taste has discovered that greatness and 
cheerfulness are not incompatible ; it has thrown down 
the ancient palisade and lofty walls because it is aware 
that liberty is the true portal of happiness ; yet, while 
it encourages more cheerful freedom, it must not lay 
aside becoming dignity. When we formerly approached 
the mansion through a village of its poor dependants, 
we were not offended at their proximity, because the 
massy gates and numerous courts sufficiently marked 
the distance betwixt the palace and the cottage : these 
being removed, other expedients must be adopted to 
restore the native character of Crewe Hall. 

Tatton Park. The situation of Tatton may be 
justly described as too splendid to be called interesting, 
and too vast to be deemed picturesque; yet it is alto- 
gether beautiful, in spite of that greatness which is 
rather the attribute of sublimity than of beauty. The 
mind is astonished and pleased at a very extensive 
prospect, but it cannot be interested, except by those 
objects which strike the eye distinctly ; and the scenery 
of Tatton is at present of a kind much beyond the 
pencil's power to imitate with effect: it is like the at- 
tempt to paint a giant by himself in a miniature picture. 

Perfection in landscape may be derived from various 
sources : if it is sublime, it may be wild, romantic, or 
greatly extensive: if beautiful, it may be comfortable, 
interesting, and graceful in all its parts ; but there is no 



14 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

incongruity in blending these attributes, provided the 
natural situation continues to prevail ; for this reason, 
no violation will be offered to the genius of Tatton 
Park, if we add to its splendour the amenity of inter- 
esting objects, and give to its vastness the elegance of 
comfort. 

It is not from the situation only that the character 
of Tatton derives its greatness. The command of ad- 
joining property, the style and magnitude of the man- 
sion and all its appendages contribute to confer that 
degree of importance which ought here to be the leading 
object in every plan of improvement. Vastness of ex- 
tent will no more constitute greatness of character in 
a park than a vast pile of differently coloured building 
will constitute greatness of character in a house. A 
park, from its vast extent, may perhaps surprise, but 
it will not impress us with the character of greatness 
and importance unless we are led to those parts where 
beauty is shewn to exist, with all its interest, amidst 
the boundless range of undivided property. 

Wembly. In the vicinity of the metropolis there are 
few places so free from interruption as the grounds 
at Wembly ; and, indeed, in the course of my experi- 
ence, I have seen no spot within so short a distance 
of London more perfectly secluded from those inter- 
ferences which are the common effects of divided pro- 
perty and a populous neighbourhood. Wembly is as 
quiet and retired at seven miles' distance as it could 
have been at seventy. 

The fatal experience ofsome, who begin improvements 
by building a house too sumptuous for the grounds, 
has occasionally induced others to consider the grounds 
independent of the house; but this, I conceive, will 
unavoidably lead to error. It is not necessary that the 



Different Characters and Situations 15 

house and grounds should correspond with each other 
in point of size, but the characters of each should be in 
strict harmony, since it is hardly less incongruous to 
see a palace by the side of a neglected common than 
an ugly ill-designed mansion, whether large or small, 
in the midst of highly-improved scenery, to every part 
of which it must be considered as a disgrace. 

Welbeck. The house appears to stand much lower 
than it really does on account of the entrance in the 
.basement storey; which, if carried up to the principal 
floor, will not only be of great advantage to the inside, 
by removing all necessity for ascending the present 
staircase, but the effect on the outside will be much 
greater than may at first be imagined ; since, by giving 
an opportunity of altering the shape of the ground, it 
will take the house out of an hollow, and set it on 
a pleasing eminence. The ground, at present, slopes 
gradually towards the house, with a flat hanging level, 
which is evidently artificial ; and from the northwest 
corner of the projecting wing there is a ridge of earth 
which divides this platform from the adjoining valley: 
the superfluous earth from this ridge will be sufficient 
to answer every purpose of raising the lawn to the 
house; and I propose to slope the ground with a grad- 
ual fall from the riding-house to the valley, and to 
cross this fall by an additional steep from the west front, 
making both to wind naturally towards the low ground 
of the valley. The earth may be raised just above the 
tops of the windows in the basement storey, which may 
still be sufficiently lighted by an area; but when the 
lower row of windows is totally hid, the house will 
appear too long for its height, and the depth of roof will 
be still more conspicuous. After various attempts to 
counteract this awkward effect, without any great oper- 



i6 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

ation, the following appeared the most simple : viz. that 
the present pediment (which is incongruous to the 
battlements) should be raised as a square tower, and 
that the parapets, also, at the ends of the building, 
should be raised to unite with the chimneys in the 
gables. This will serve not only to hide more of the 
roof, but will give that importance to the whole fabric, 
which, in a large mass of Gothic building, is always 
increased by the irregularity of its outline. 

I have also changed the colour of the roof and 
chimneys: for, though such minutiae are apt to pass 
unnoticed in the great outline of improvement, I con- 
sider the mention of them as a duty of my profession ; 
as the motley appearance of red brick with white stone, 
by breaking the unity of effect, will often destroy the 
magnificence of the most splendid composition. 



Chapter II 

Buildings 



THE perfection of landscape gardening depends on 
a concealment of those operations of art by which 
jiature is embellished ; but where buildings are intro- 
duced, art declares herself openly, and should, therefore, 
be very careful, lest she have cause to blush at her inter- 
ference. It is this circumstance that renders it absolutely 
necessary for the landscape gardener to have a com- 
petent knowledge of architecture : 1 am, however, well 
aware that no art is more difficult to be acquired; and 
although every inferior workman pretends to give plans 
for building, yet perfection in that art is confined to 
a very few gentlemen, who, with native genius and a lib- 
eral education, have acquired good taste by travel and 
observation. 

This remark proceeds from the frequent instances 
I continually see of good houses built without any taste, 
and attempts to embellish scenery by ornamental 
buildings that are totally incongruous to their respect- 
ive situations. The country carpenter or bricklayer is 
only accustomed to consider detached parts ; the arch- 
itect, on the contrary, finds it his office to consider 
the whole. There is some degree of merit in building 
good rooms, but there is more in connecting these 
rooms together; however, it is the regular bred archi- 
tect alone who can add to these an outside according 
to the established rules of art : and where these rules 
are grossly violated, the eye of genuine taste will in- 



1 8 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

stantly be offended, although it may not always be able 
to explain the cause of its disgust. 

To my profession belongs chiefly the external part 
of architecture or a knowledge of the effect of buildings 
on the surrounding scenery. 

Welbeck. As every conspicuous building in a park 
should derive its character from that of the house, it 
is very essential to fix, with some precision, what that 
character ought to be ; yet the various tastes of success- 
ive ages have so blended opposite styles of architecture 
that it is often difficult, in an old house, to determine 
the date to which its true character belongs. I venture 
to deliver it as my opinion that there are only two 
characters of buildings: the one may be called per- 
pendicular, and the other horizontal. Under the first, 
I class all buildings erected in England before and dur- 
ing the early part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, whether 
deemed Saracenic, Saxon, Norman, or the Gothic of 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and even that 
peculiar kind called Queen Elizabeth's Gothic, in which 
turrets prevailed, though battlements were discarded 
and Grecian columns occasionally introduced. Under the 
horizontal character I include all edifices built since 
the introduction of a more regular architecture, whether 
it copies the remains of Grecian or Roman models. 

The character of the house should, of course, pre- 
vail in all such buildings as are very conspicuous, or 
in any degree intended as ornaments to the general 
scenery ; such as lodges, pavilions, temples, belvederes, 
and the like. Yet, in adapting the Gothic style to 
buildings of small extent, there may be some reason- 
able objection: the fastidiousness even of good taste 
will, perhaps, observe that we always see vast piles 
of buildings in ancient Gothic remains, and that it is 



Buildings 19 

a modern or false Gothic only which can be adapted 
to so small a building as a keeper's lodge, a reposoir, or 
a pavilion. There may be some force in this objection, 
but there is always so much picturesque effect in the 
small fragments of those great piles that, without re- 
presenting them as ruins, it is surely allowable to copy 
them for the purposes of ornament : and with respect 
to the mixture of different styles in Gothic edifices, 
I think there is no incongruity, provided the same 
character of perpendicular architecture be studiously 
retained; because there is hardly a cathedral in England 
in which such mixture may not be observed : and while 
the antiquary only can discover the Saxon and Norman 
styles from the Gothic of later date, the eye of taste 
will never be offended, except by the occasional intro- 
duction of some Grecian or Roman ornaments. 

Wembly. The characters of Grecian and Gothic 
architecture are better distinguished by an attention to 
their general effects than to the minute parts , peculiar 
to each. It is in architecture as in painting, beauty 
depends on light and shade, and these are caused by 
the openings or projections in the surface : if these tend 
to produce horizontal lines, the building must be deemed 
Grecian, however whimsically the doors or windows 
may be constructed ; if, on the contrary, the shadows 
give a prevalence of perpendicular lines, the general 
character of the building will be Gothic; and this is 
evident from the large houses built in Queen Eliza- 
beth's reign, where Grecian columns are introduced ; 
nevertheless, we always consider them as Gothic build- 
ings. 

In Grecian architecture, we expect large cornices, 
windows ranged perfectly on the same line, and that 
line often more strongly marked by a horizontal fascia ; 



20 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

but there are few breaks of any great depth ; and if there 
be a portico, the shadow made by the columns is very 
trifling, compared with that broad horizontal shadow 
proceeding from the soffit ; and the only ornament its 
roof will admit is either a flat pediment, departing 
very little from the horizontal tendency, or a dome, still 
rising from a horizontal base. With such buildings it 
may often be observed that trees of a pointed or conic 
shape have a beautiful eff^ect, I believe chiefly from the 
circumstance? of contrast ; though an association with 
the ideas of Italian paintings, where we often see Grecian 
edifices blended with firs and cypresses, may also have 
some influence on the mind. 

Trees of a conic shape mixed with Gothic buildings 
displease, from their affinity with the prevalent lines of 
the architecture ; since the play of light and shadow in 
Gothic structures must proceed from those bold projec- 
tions, either of towers or buttresses, which cause strong 
shadows in a perpendicular direction : at the same time 
the horizontal line of roof is broken into an irregular 
surface by the pinnacles, turrets, and battlements that 
form the principal enrichment of Gothic architecture ; 
which becomes, therefore, peculiarly adapted to those 
situations where the shape of the ground occasionally 
hides the lower part of the building, while its roof is 
relieved by trees, whose forms contrast with those of 
the Gothic outline. 

As this observation is new, and may, perhaps, be 
thought too fanciful, I must appeal to the eye, by the help 
of the illustration [Plate i], which I hope will find that 
my observation is not wholly chimerical ; and will, con- 
sequently, lay the foundation for this general principle ; 
viz. that the lines of Gothic buildings are contrasted 
with round-headed trees; or, as Milton observes, — 




r.i 3 



o 

o 



u 

60 



Buildings 21 

** Towers and battlements he sees, 
Embosom'd high in tufted trees'''' ; 

and that those of the Grecian will accord either with 
round or conic trees ; but if the base be hid the con- 
trast of the latter will be most pleasing. 

The Gothic style of architecture being the most cal- 
culated for additions or repairs to an old house, I might 
here venture to recommend it on the score of mere 
utility ; but when we take into the account that pictur- 
esque effect which is always produced by the mixture 
of Gothic buildings with round-headed trees, I confess 
myself to be rather sanguine in my hopes of produc- 
ing such beauty at Wembly as will render that house, 
which has hitherto been a reproach to the place, the 
leading feature of the scenery. Instead of clogging 
all the improvements with the dread of shewing the 
house, I conceive it possible, without any very great 
expense, to convert the house itself into the most 
pleasing object throughout every part of the grounds 
from whence it may be visible. 

Having stated some arguments for adopting the 
Gothic style, I shall now proceed to consider the objec- 
tions that may be urged against it. 

The first objection will arise from the expense of 
altering the outside, without any addition to the inter- 
nal comfort of the mansion. The same objection may, 
indeed, be made to every species of external ornament 
in dress, furniture, equipage, or any other object of 
taste or elegance : the outside case of a harpsichord 
does not improve the tone of the instrument, but it 
decorates the room in which it is placed : thus it is as 
an ornament to the beautiful grounds at Wembly that 
I contend for the external improvement of the house. 
But in altering the house, we may add a room to any 



22 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

part of the building without injuring the picturesque 
outside, because an exact symmetry, so far from being 
necessary, is rather to be avoided in a Gothic building. 
Another objection may arise from the smallness of 
the house, as Gothic structures are in general of consid- 
erable magnitude ; but the character of great or small 
is not governed by measurement : a great building may 
be made to appear small ; and it is from the quantity 
of windows, and not their size, that we should pro- 
nounce the house at Wembly to be a very consider- 
able edifice. 



Chapter III 

Proper Situations for a House 



WELBECK. However various opinions may be 
on the choice of a situation for a house, yet 
there appear to be certain principles on which such 
choice ought to be founded ; and these may be deduced 
from the following considerations : 

First. The natural character of the surrounding 
country. 

Secondly. The style, character, and size of the house. 

Thirdly. The aspects of exposure, both with regard 
to the sun and the prevalent winds of the country. 

Fourthly. The shape of the ground near the house. 

Fifthly. The views from the several apartments; 
and, 

Sixthly The numerous objects of comfort : — such 
as a dry soil, a supply of good water, proper space 
for offices, with various other conveniences essential to 
a mansion in the country ; and which in a town may 
sometimes be dispensed with, or at least very differ- 
ently disposed. 

It is hardly possible to arrange these six considera- 
tions according to their respective weight or influence, 
which must depend on a comparison of one with the 
other, under a variety of circumstances ; and even on 
the partiality of individuals in affixing different degrees 
of importance to each consideration. Hence it is ob- 
vious that there can be no danger of sameness in any 
two designs conducted on principles thus established. 



24 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

since in every different situation some one or more of 
these considerations must preponderate ; and the most 
rational decision will result from a combined view of 
all the separate advantages or disadvantages to be fore- 
seen from each.^ 

It was the custom of former times, in the choice of 
domestic situations, to let comfort and convenience 
prevail over every other consideration : thus the ancient 
baronial castles were built on the summit of hills, in 
times when defence and security suggested the neces- 
sity of placing them there, and difficulty of access was 
a recommendation which, in our happier days, exists 
no more. But when this necessity no longer operated 
(as mankind are always apt to fly from one extreme to 
the other), houses were universally erected in the low- 
est situations, with a probable design to avoid those 
inconveniences to which the lofty positions had been 
subject; hence the frequent sites of many large man- 
sions, and particularly abbeys and monasteries, the 
residence of persons who were willing to sacrifice the 
beauty of prospect for the more solid and permanent 
advantages of habitable convenience : amongst which 
shelter from wind and a supply of water were pre- 
dominant considerations. Nor shall I withhold the fol- 
lowing conjecture, which I hope will not be considered 
as a mere suggestion of fancy. When such buildings 
were surrounded by trees for the comfort of shade, 
might not the occasional want of circulation in the air 
have given the first idea of cutting long narrow glades 
through the woods to admit a current of wind ? and is 
it not possible that this was the origin of those avenues 
which we frequently see pointing, from every direction, 
towards the most respectable habitations of the two 
last centuries ? 



Proper Situations for a House 



25 



Langley. It seems to have been as much the fash- 
ion of the present century to condemn avenues as it 
was in the last to plant them ; and yet the subject is so 
little understood that most people think they suffi- 
ciently justify their opinion, in either case, by merely 
saying, " I like an avenue," or, " I hate an avenue " : it 
is my business to analyse this approbation or disgust. 

The several degrees of pleasure which the mind 
derives from the love of order, of unity, antiquity, 
greatness of parts, and continuity are all in some meas- 
ure gratified by the long perspective view of a stately 
avenue : for the truth of this assertion I appeal to 
the sensations that every one must have felt who 
has visited the lofty avenues of Windsor, Hatfield, 
Burleigh, etc., before experience had pointed out that 
tedious sameness and the many inconveniences which 
have deservedly brought avenues into disrepute. This 
sameness is so obvious that, by the effect of avenues, 
all novelty or diversity of situation is done away ; and 
the views from every house in the kingdom may be 
reduced to the same landscape, if looking up or down 
a straight line, betwixt two green walls, deserves the 
name of landscape. 

Among the inconveniences of long straight avenues 
may very properly be reckoned that of their acting as 
wind-spouts to direct cold blasts with more violence 
upon the dwelling, as driven through a long tube. 
But I propose rather to consider the objections in 
point of beauty. If at the end of a long avenue be 
placed an obelisk, or temple, or any other eye-trap, 
ignorance or childhood alone will be caught or pleased 
by it : the eye of taste or experience hates compulsion, 
and turns away with disgust from every artificial means 
of attracting its notice. For this reason an avenue is 



26 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

most pleasing, which, like that at Langley Park, climbs 
up a hill, and, passing over its summit, leaves the fancy 
to conceive its termination."* 

One great mischief of an avenue is that it divides 
a park and cuts it into separate parts, destroying that 
unity of lawn or wood which is necessary to please in 
every composition: this is so obvious that, where a long 
avenue runs through a park from east to west, it would 
be hardly possible to avoid distinguishing it into the 
north and south lawn, or north and south division of 
the park. 

But the greatest objection to an avenue is that (espe- 
cially in uneven ground) it will often act as a curtain 
drawn across to exclude what is infinitely more interest- 
ing than any row of trees, however venerable or beau- 
tiful in themselves ; and it is in undrawing this curtain 
at proper places that the utility of what is called break- 
ing an avenue consists : for it is in vain we shall en- 
deavour, by removing nine tenths of the trees in rows, 
to prevent its having the effect of an avenue when seen 
from either end. The illustration [Plate iii] may serve to 
shew the effect of cutting down some chestnut-trees in 
the avenue at Langley, to let in the hill, richly covered 
with oaks, and that majestic tree which steps out be- 
fore its brethren like the leader of a host. Such open- 
ings may be made in several parts of this avenue with 
wonderful effect; and yet its venerable appearance from 
the windows of the saloon will not be injured, because 
the trees removed from the rows will hardly be missed 
in the general perspective view from the house. And 
though I should not advise the planting such an avenue, 
yet there will always be so much of ancient grandeur 
in the front trees, and in looking up this long vista 
at Langley, that I do not wish it should be further 



Proper Situations for a House 27 

disturbed, especially as the views on each side are suf- 
ficiently capable of yielding beauty; and, when seen 
from the end rooms of the house, the avenue will act as 
a foreground to either landscape. 

Hanslope. Most of the large trees at Hanslope 
stand in avenues, yet their pleasant shade forbids the 
cutting down many of them, merely because the false 
taste of former times has planted them in rows ; at 
least till those plantations which are now made shall 
better replace the shelter which the avenues in some 
measure afford. The breaking of an avenue to the 
north is not to be done by merely taking away certain 
trees, but also by planting a thicket before the trunks 
of those at a distance ; as we may be thus induced to 
forget that they stand in rows. The addition of a few 
single trees, guarded by cradles, though often used as an 
expedient to break a row, never produces the desired 
effect : the original lines are for ever visible. ^ 

Welbeck. Besides the character which the style and 
size of the house will confer on a place, there is a natural 
character of country which must influence the site and 
disposition of a house; and though, in the country, 
there is not the same occasion as in towns for placing 
offices under ground, or for setting the principal apart- 
ments on a basement storey, as it is far more desirable 
to walk from the house on the same level with the 
ground, yet there are situations which require to be 
raised above the natural surface : this is the case at 
Welbeck, where the park not only abounds with bold 
and conspicuous inequalities, but in many places there 
are almost imperceptible swelhngs in the ground, which 
art would in vain attempt to remedy, from their vast 
breadth ; though they are evident defects whenever 
they appear to cut across the stems of trees and hide 



28 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

only half their trunks ; for if the whole trunk were per- 
fectly hid by such a swell, the injury would be less, 
because the imagination is always ready to sink the 
valley and raise the hill, if not checked in its efforts by 
some actual standard of measurement. In such cases 
the best expedient is to view the ground from a gentle 
eminence, that the eye may look over and, of course, 
lose these trifling inequalities. 

The family apartments are to the south, the prin- 
cipal suite of rooms to the east, and the hall and some 
rooms of less importance to the west ; when, therefore, 
the eating-room and kitchen offices shall be removed 
to the north, it is impossible to make a better disposi- 
tion of the whole, with regard to aspect. 1 shall there- 
fore proceed to the fourth general head proposed for 
consideration, viz. the shape of the ground near the 
house : and as the improvement at Welbeck, origin- 
ally suggested by His Grace the Duke of Portland, has, 
I confess, far exceeded even my own expectations, 
I shall take the liberty of drawing some general con- 
clusions on the subject, from the success of this bold 
experiment. At the time I had the honour to deliver 
my former opinion, my idea of raising the ground near 
the house was confined to the west front alone; and, 
till it had been exemplified and executed, few could 
comprehend the seeming paradox of burying the bot- 
tom of the house as the means of elevating the whole 
structure ; or, as it was very wittily expressed, " mould- 
ing up the roots of the venerable pile, that it might 
shoot up in fresh towers from its top." 

All natural shapes of ground must necessarily fall 
under one of these descriptions, viz., convex, concave, 
plane, or inclined plane, as represented in the follow- 
ing sections [Fig. 3]. I will suppose it granted that. 



Proper Situations for a House 



29 



except In very romantic situations, all the rooms on 
the principal floor ought to range on the same level ; 
and that there must be a platform, or certain space of 
ground, with a gentle descent from the house every 
way. If the ground be naturally convex, or what is 
generally called a knoll, the size of the house must 




Fig. 3, Sections to shew the manner of adapting houses to different natural 
shapes of ground. 

be adapted to the size of the knoll : this is shown by 
the small building a, supposed to be only one hun- 
dred feet in front, which may be placed upon such 
a hillock, with a sufficient platform round it ; but if 
a building of three hundred feet long, as b b, should 
be required, it is evident that the crown of the hill 
must be taken off, and then the shape of the ground 
becomes very different from its original form : for 
although the small house would have a sufficient plat- 
form, the large one will be on the brink of a very steep 



30 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

bank at c ; and this difficulty would be increased by- 
raising the ground to the dotted line o, to set the 
large house on the same level with the smaller one. 
It therefore follows that if the house must stand on 
a natural hillock, the building should not be larger than 
its situation will admit ; and where such hillocks do not 
exist in places proper for a house in every other respect, 
it is sometimes possible for art to supply what nature 
seems to have denied. But it is not possible in all 
cases ; a circumstance which proves the absurdity of 
those architects who design and plan a house, without 
any previous knowledge of the situation or shape of 
the ground on which it is to be built. Such errors 
I have had too frequent occasion to observe. 

When the shape is naturally either concave or per- 
fectly flat, the house would not be habitable unless the 
ground sloped sufficiently to throw the water from it. 
This is often effected, in a slight degree, merely by the 
earth that is dug from the cellars and foundations ; but 
if, instead of sinking the cellars, they were to be built 
upon the level of the ground, they may afterwards be so 
covered with earth as to give all the appearance of a 
natural knoll, the ground falling from the house to any 
distance where it may best unite with the natural shape, 
as shewn at e, f, and g: or, as it frequently happens 
that there may be small hillocks, h and i, near the 
house, one of them may be removed to effect this pur- 
pose. This expedient can also be used in an inclined 
plane, falling towards the house, where the inclination 
is not very great, as shewn at l ; but it may be ob- 
served of the inclined plane that the size of the house 
must be governed in some measure by the fall of the 
ground; since it is evident that although a house of 
a hundred feet deep might stand at k, yet it would 



Proper Situations for a House 31 

require an artificial terrace on that side ; because neither 
of the dotted lines shewn there would connect with 
the natural shape ; and where the ground cannot be 
made to look natural, it is better, at all times, to avow 
the interference of art than to attempt an ineffectual 
concealment of it. Such situations are peculiarly appli- 
cable to the Gothic style, in which horizontal lines are 
unnecessary. 

These sections can only describe the shape of the 
ground as it cuts across in any one direction. But an- 
other shape is also to be considered : thus it generally 
happens that a knoll is longer one way than the other, or 
it may even extend to a natural ridge, of sufficient length 
for a long and narrow house; but such a house must 
be fitted to the ground, for it would be absurd in the 
architect to place it either diagonally or directly across 
such a ridge. The same holds good of the inclined plane, 
which is, in fact, always the side of a valley whose 
general inclination must be consulted in the position 
of the building. A square house would appear awry 
unless its fronts were made to correspond with the shape 
of the adjacent ground. 

I shall conclude this digression by observing that 
on a dead flat or plain the principal apartments ought 
to be elevated, as the only means of shewing the land- 
scape to advantage. Where there is no inequality, it 
will be very difficult to unite any artificial ground with 
the natural shape: it will in this case be advisable either 
to raise it only a very few feet or to set the house on 
a basement storey. But wherever a park abounds in 
natural inequalities, even though the ground near the 
house should be flat, we may boldly venture to create 
an artificial knoll, as it has been executed at Welbeck. 



Chapter IV 



Water 



THERE being no part of my profession so cap- 
tivating in its effect, and oftentimes so readily 
executed, as making a large piece of artificial water, it 
may be proper, in this volume, to give a few specimens 
of different improvements presumed to have been 
produced by it: though, if all that I have written to 
explain and elucidate this subject were to be inserted, 
the whole of the volume would be engrossed by it. I 
must, therefore, for the present, only mention a few 
places where artificial pieces of water have been orna- 
mented under my directions : ^ viz. at Holkham, the 
magnificent lake has been dressed by walks on its 
banks, and a peculiar ferryboat invented to unite the 
opposite shores. 

Welbeck. From the number of small promontories 
and bays, together with its termination full in view of 
the house, the water at Welbeck had acquired the char- 
acter, and indeed the name, of a lake : but as a large 
river is always more beautiful than a small lake, the 
character has been changed, not only by continuing it 
beyond the house, but also by altering its line, and 
taking off" those projections which were inconsistent 
with the course of a natural river. 

Tatton Park. It has often been asserted by authors 
on gardening that all pieces of fresh water must come 
under one of these descriptions, — a lake^ 2ipool^ a river ^ 
or a rivulet : but since my acquaintance with Cheshire, 



Water ^3 

I am inclined to add the meer, as an intermediate term 
between the lake and the pool ; it being, frequently, 
too large to be deemed a pool, and too small as well 
as too round in its form to deserve the name of a lake: 
for the beauty of a lake consists not so much in its size 
as in those deep bays and bold promontories which 
prevent the eye from ranging over its whole surface. 
What is best respecting the two large meers in Tatton 
Park is a question of some difficulty, and on which 
there has been a variety of opinions, I shall now pro- 
ceed to deliver mine, and endeavour to explain the 
reasons on which it is founded. 

Unity of design in all compositions is, confessedly, 
one of the first principles in each of the polite arts ; 
and nothing, perhaps, evinces more strongly the love 
of unity acting on the mind in landscape gardening 
than the following fact, — viz. that the most super- 
ficial observer of any park scene will be displeased by 
the view of two separate pieces of water; and he will 
probably ask, without reflecting on the difference of 
levels, why they are not formed into one? The first 
opinion seems, therefore, that these two waters should 
be united : but if the union is not clearly possible, it 
certainly ought not to be attempted. The second opin- 
ion is that the upper pool ought to be destroyed, or, 
as some express themselves, should be filled up : but 
the latter would be an Herculean labour to very little 
purpose, and the former, though practicable, would 
not be advisable, because so deep a hollow immediately 
in front of the house would be a yawning chasm, very 
difficult to convert into an object of beauty. My opin- 
ion, therefore, is that the two waters should, from the 
house, appear to be connected with each other, although 
in reality they are very far asunder ; and the means of 



34 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

effecting such a deception will require some theoretical 
reasoning to explain. 

The deception at present operates to the disadvant- 
age of the waters, for I was myself greatly deceived in 
the size of this pool when I looked at it from the house ; 
and as it produces a similar effect on every person who 
first sees it, I must explain the causes of the deception. 

First. The net fence through which the water ap- 
pears is so near the windows that, by the laws of per- 
spective (of which I will explain some general rules in 
the sequel), it acts as a false standard, and by it we 
measure the size of the pool. It was for this reason that 
I desired some cattle might be driven on the banks, 
which, as I have elsewhere shewn, are the best standard 
for assisting the judgement with respect to the distance, 
and, of course, the dimensions of other objects. 

Secondly. The pool is almost circular, and the eye 
darts round its border with such instantaneous im- 
perceptible velocity that it is impossible to suppose 
its circumference to be nearly a mile, unless we can 
see cattle on the opposite shores ; and then, by their 
respective dimensions, we judge of the comparative 
distance. The sheep on one side the water appear to 
be larger than the cows on the other. The bay or creek 
may be hid by shrubs, which will give the eye a check 
in its circuitous progress. 

To explain the uses of the other bay (which seems 
to connect the water in the foreground with the water 
in the distance), I must take the liberty to describe 
some effects in perspective, not, I believe, generally 
attended to in gardening. Perspective, in painting, Is 
known to be of two kinds: the first is called linear per- 
spective, and is that by which objects appear to diminish 
in proportion to the distance at which they are viewed. 



Water 25 

This I have here already mentioned, in referring to the 
use of cattle as a scale of measurement : a horse, a cow, 
or a sheep is very nearly of the same size, and with 
this size the mind is perfectly acquainted ; but trees, 
bushes, hills, or pools of water are so various in their 
dimensions that we are never able to judge exactly of 
their size or at what distance they appear to us. 

The second kind of perspective is aerial, as it depends 
on the atmosphere; since we observe that objects not 
only diminish in their size but in their distinctness, in 
proportion to the body of air betwixt the eye and the 
objects : those nearest are strongly represented, while 
other parts, as they recede, become less distinct, till at 
last the outline of a distant hill seems melting into the 
air itself. Such are the laws of aerial perspective on all 
objects, but not on all alike ; since it is the peculiar 
property of light, and the reflection of light, unmixed 
by colour, to suffer much less by comparison than any 
other object. It is for this reason that we are so much 
deceived in the distance of perfectly white objects: the 
light reflected from a whitewashed house makes it 
appear out of its place ; snow, at many miles' distance, 
appears to be in the next field ; indeed, so totally are 
we unable to judge of light that a meteor within our 
atmosphere is sometimes mistaken for a lantern ; at 
others, for a falling star. Water, like a mirror, reflect- 
ing the light, becomes equally uncertain in its real 
distance ; and, therefore, an apparent union of the two 
meers in Tatton Park may be effected by attending to 
this circumstance. The large piece of water crosses the 
eye in the view from the house ; consequently it looks 
much less considerable than it really is, and its effect is 
of little advantage to the scene, being too distant, and 
too widely separated by the vast tract of low ground 



26 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

betwixt the pool and the lake. I propose that this 
water should be rendered more interesting, by making 
it appear as if the arm of a river proceeded from the 
lake ; and its termination will easily be hid in the (dis- 
tant) valley. I hope it will appear that the ideal con- 
nexion of the two waters may be accomplished, although 
the actual junction is impracticable. The facility of de- 
ception arises from the causes already stated, viz. that 
water is a mirror from which light is strongly reflected, 
and that of the distance betwixt any light and the eye 
we form a very inaccurate judgement : it is, therefore, 
impossible to know, by looking on the surfaces of two 
distinct waters, whether they are of the same level, 
unless some ground betwixt them assists the measure- 
ment. We have, therefore, only to bring the two meers 
nearer to each other, and give their forms such curv- 
ature as I have described, to produce that effect of 
apparent unity, which is all that is necessary in this 
instance. 

I am aware of the common objection to all efforts 
that may be deemed deceptions ; but it is the business 
of taste, in all the polite arts, to avail itself of strata- 
gems by which the imagination may be deceived. The 
images of poetry and of painting are then most inter- 
esting when they seduce the mind to believe their 
fictions ; and in landscape gardening everything may 
be called a deception by which we endeavour to conceal 
the agency of art and make our works appear the sole 
product of nature. The most common attempts to 
improve may, indeed, be called deceptions : we plant 
a hill to make it appear higher than it is ; we open the 
banks of a brook, to give it the appearance of a river ; 
or stop its current, to produce an expanse of surface ; 
we sink the fence betwixt one lawn and another, to 



Water 37 

give imaginary extent, without inconvenience or con- 
finement ; and every piece of artificial water, whether it 
take the shape of a lake, a river, or a pool, must look 
natural or it will fail to be agreeable. Nor is the im- 
agination so fastidious as to take offence at any well- 
supported deception, even after the want of reality is 
discovered. When we are interested at a tragedy, we 
do not inquire whence the characters are copied ; on 
the contrary, we forget that we see a Garrick or a Sid- 
dons, and join in the sorrows of a Belvidere or a 
Beverley, though we know that no such persons ever 
existed : it is enough if so much as we are shewn of 
the character appears to be a just resemblance of nature. 
In the same manner the magnificent water at Blen- 
heim strikes with wonder and delight, while we neither 
see its beginning nor end ; and we do not view it with 
less pleasure after we are told that it was not originally 
a natural lake, but that Mr. Brown, stopping the cur- 
rent of a small river, collected this vast body of water 
into the beautiful shape we now admire. 

Mr. Burke very justly observes " that a true artist 
should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and 
effect the noblest designs by easy methods. Designs 
that are vast only by their dimensions are always the 
sign of a common and low imagination. No work of 
art can be great but as it deceives ; to be otherwise is 
the prerogative of nature only."' 



Chapter V 

Large Private Places^ 



WELBECK. The view from the principal apart- 
ments should bear some proportion to the impor- 
tance of the house itself; not so much in the quantity 
or extent of the prospect as in the nature of the ob- 
jects which compose the scenery; an extensive prospect 
being only applicable to a castle, a villa, or a belvedere. 
The landscape from a palace should everywhere appear 
appropriate to the magnificence or pleasure of its in- 
habitants : the whole should be, or at least appear to 
be, a park, unlimited and unconfined by those lines 
of division or boundary which characterize the large 
grass-fields of a dairy-farm. Yet a park has a character 
distinct from a forest; for while we admire and even 
imitate the romantic wildness of nature, we ought never 
to forget that a park is the habitation of men, and not 
solely devoted to beasts of the forest. I am convinced 
that some enthusiasic admirers of uncultivated nature 
are too apt to overlook this distinction. Park scenery 
compared with forest scenery is like an historical picture 
compared with a landscape; nature must alike prevail 
in both, but that which relates to man should have 
a higher place in the scale of arts. 

The objects which nature has furnished at Welbeck 
are of the most beautiful kind, and truly in character 
with the dignity of the place. The vast range of woods, 
the extensive lawns, the broad expanse of river, and the 
astonishing oaks scattered about the park seem to 



■■n 


r 


aKm 


f 


^^^HJ^H^^^^^^Hr 




' Wm 




jH 


1 




' >« 


ay^^ 




"-^i— illl. 


h-W^ 






^I^^H^ 


IP 

f - 


^^^m 


f^ 


i^H 


• ' 



h 



h 



> 



Large Private Places 39 

require but a little attention from art to mark the re- 
sidence of a noble possessor ; yet, as there are a few 
instances in which the interference of art can openly be 
acknowledged, those few should not be neglected. 
Buildings, however simple, if in character and not too 
numerous, will more than anything contribute to dis- 
play magnificence. 

Woods enriched by buildings, and water enlivened 
by a number of pleasure-boats, alike contribute to mark 
a visible difference betwixt the magnificent scenery of 
a "park and that of a sequestered forest: the trees, the 
water, the lawns, and the deer are alike common to both. 

There is another distinction betwixt park and forest 
scenery on which I shall beg leave to state my opinion, 
as it has been a topic of some doubt and difficulty 
amongst the admirers of my profession, viz. how far 
gravel roads are admissible across the lawns of a park : 
yet surely very little doubt will remain on this subject 
when we consider a park as a place of residence; and 
see the great inconvenience to which grass roads are 
continually liable. 

I have endeavoured to discover two reasons which 
may have given rise to the common technical objection 
that a gravel road cuts up a lawn : the first arises from 
the effect observed after an avenue has been destroyed, 
where the straight line of gravel, which formerly was 
less offensive while accompanied by trees, becomes in- 
tolerable when it divides a small lawn directly through 
the middle. The other arises from the effect which even 
a winding turnpike road has in destroying the seques- 
tered and solemn dignity of forest scenery : but in a park 
a road of convenience and of breadth proportioned to 
its intention as an approach to the house for visitors 
win often be a circumstance of great beauty; and is a 



40 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

characteristic ornament of art, allowable in the finest 
inhabited scenes of nature. 

Wembly. The park ^ at Wembly is only defective in 
two circumstances: the first is the common defect of 
all places where hedges have been recently removed and 
too many single trees are left ; the natural reluctance 
felt by every man of taste and experience to cut down 
large trees, at the same time that he sees the unpleas- 
ant eflfect of artificial rows, is very apt to suggest the 
idea of breaking those rows by planting many young 
trees; and thus the whole composition becomes frittered 
into small parts, which are neither compatible with the 
ideas of ^he sublime nor beautiful. The masses of light 
and shade, whether in a natural landscape or a picture, 
must be broad and unbroken, or the eye will be dis- 
tracted by the flutter of the scene; and the mind will be 
rather employed in retracing the former lines of hedge- 
rows than in admiring the ample extent of lawn and 
continuity of wood which alone distinguishes the park 
from the grass- or dairy-farm. This defect will of course 
easily be remedied when the new plantations shall have 
acquired a few years' growth, and many of the old trees 
shall be either taken down or blended into closer 
groups by young ones planted very near them: but 
there can be little occasion for dotting young trees with 
such profusion, and I do not hesitate to affirm that of 
several hundred such trees now scattered upon the lawn 
not more than twenty can be absolutely necessary. 

The other defect of Wembly arises from a sameness 
of objects ; and this is a defect common to all the 
countries where the grass-land is more generally mowed 
than fed. It proves, what no landscape painter ever 
doubted, that a scene consisting of vegetable produc- 
tions only can seldom make a pleasing picture. The 



Large Private Places 41 

contrasted greens of wood and lawn are not sufficient 
to gratify the eye ; it requires other objects, and those 
of different colours, such as rocks, water, and cattle ; 
but where these natural objects cannot easily be had, 
the variety may be obtained by artificial means, such 
as a building, a tent, or a road ; and, perhaps, there is 
no object more useful in such countries than a good- 
coloured gravel road, gracefully winding, and of course 
describing those gentle swells of the ground which are 
hardly perceptible from the uniform colour of grass- 
land. The approach-road to the house will be a feature 
on the lawn, both as seen from thence and also from 
the high ground about the park. Cattle might be more 
frequently introduced than seems to be the custom of 
this country, especially sheep, than which nothing con- 
tributes more to enliven a lawn and even to improve 
and fertilize its verdure ; and though some objections 
may arise, from the nature of the soil, they are by no 
means insurmountable. 

Castle Hill. A scene, however beautiful in itself, 
will soon lose its interest unless it is enlivened by mov- 
ing objects. [Plate v.] This may be effected by sunk 
fences ; and from the shape of the ground, there is 
another material use in having cattle to feed the lawn 
before the windows. The eye forms a very inaccurate 
judgement of extent, unless there be some standard by 
which it can be measured ; bushes and trees are of 
such various sizes that it is impossible to use them as 
a measure of distance ; but the size of a horse, a sheep, 
or a cow varies so little that we immediately judge of 
their distance from their apparent diminution, accord- 
ing to the distance at which they are placed ; and as 
they occasionally change their situation, they break 
that surface over which the eye passes, without observ- 



42 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

ing it, to the first object it meets to rest upon. It has 
been objected to the slides with which I elucidate my 
proposed alterations that I generally introduce in the 
improved view boats on the water and cattle on the 
lawns. To this I answer that both are real objects of 
improvement, and give animation to the scene ; indeed 
it cannot be too often inculcated that a large lake with- 
out boats is a dreary waste of water, and a large lawn 
without cattle is one of the melancholy appendages of 
solitary grandeur observable in the pleasure-grounds 
of the past century. 

Wembly. The expedient of producing variety at 
Wembly, by buildings, is perhaps the most difficult, 
and requires the greatest attention ; because one source 
of our admiration is that in the neighbourhood of the 
metropolis a place should exist so perfectly secluded 
and detached from the " busy haunts of men " : we 
must, therefore, be particularly cautious that every 
building should appear to be an appendage or inmate 
of the place, and not a neighbour intruding on its 
privacy. From hence arose some difficulty in the style 
of building proper for the prospect on the hill — a very 
small one would have been inadequate to the purpose 
of containing such companies as may resort thither, as 
well as forming a dwelling-house for those who should 
have the care of the prospect rooms and the dairy ; 
yet in building a large house there was danger of mak- 
ing it appear to belong to some other person. 

To the common observer, the beauties of Wembly 
may appear to need no improvement ; but it is the 
duty of my profession to discover how native charms 
may be heightened by the assistance of taste : and that 
even beauty itself may be rendered more beautiful, this 
place will furnish a striking example. 



Chapter VI 

Formal Gardening 



THERE is no part of my profession more difficult 
and troublesome than the attempt to modernise, 
in part only, those places which have been formerly 
decorated by the line and square of geometric taste. 
To explain this difficulty, I will briefly state the diflFer- 
ence between the principles on which improvements are 
now conducted and those which governed the style of 
former periods. 

The perfection of landscape gardening consists in 
the four following requisites : First, it must display the 
natural beauties and hide the natural defects of every 
situation. Secondly, it should give the appearance of 
extent and freedom, by carefully disguising or hiding 
the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal 
every interference of art, however expensive, by which 
the scenery is improved, making the whole appear the 
production of nature only ; and, fourthly, all objects 
of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being 
made ornamental, or of becoming proper parts of the 
general scenery, must be removed or concealed. Con- 
venience and comfort, I confess, have occasionally 
misled modern improvers into the absurdity of not 
only banishing the appearance but the reality of all 
comfort and convenience to a distance ; as I have 
frequently found in the bad choice of a spot for the 
kitchen-garden. 

Each of the four objects here enumerated is directly 



44 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

opposite to the principles of ancient gardening, which 
may thus be stated. First, the natural beauties or de- 
fects of a situation had no influence, when it was the 
fashion to exclude, by lofty walls, every surrounding 
object. Secondly, these walls were never considered as 
defects; but, on the contrary, were ornamented with 
vases, expensive iron gates, and palisades, to render 
them more conspicuous. Thirdly, so far from making 
gardens appear natural, every expedient was used to 
display the expensive efforts of art, by which nature 
had been subdued: — the ground was levelled »by a 
line ; the water was squared, or scollopped into regular 
basins ; the trees, if not clipped into artificial shape, 
were at least so planted by line and measurement that 
the formal hand of art could nowhere be mistaken. 
And, lastly, with respect to objects of convenience, 
they were placed as near the house as possible: — the 
stables, the barns, and the kitchen-garden were among 
the ornaments of a place ; while the village, the alms- 
house, the parish school, and churchyard were not 
attempted to be concealed by the walls or palisades that 
divided them from the embellished pleasure-ground. 

Lathom. Congruity of style, uniformity of charac- 
ter, and. harmony of parts with the whole are different 
modes of expressing that unity, without which no com- 
position can be perfect : yet there are few principles in 
gardening which seem to be so little understood. This 
essential unity has often been mistaken for symmetry, 
or the correspondence of similar parts ; as where 

** Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother. 
And half the platform just reflects the other." 

Pope. 

Indeed, this symmetry in the works of art was perfectly 
justifiable under that style of gardening which confined. 



Formal Gardening 45 

within lofty walls, the narrow enclosure appropriated to 
ancient grandeur. 

When the whole design is meant to be surveyed at 
a single glance, the eye is assisted in its office by mak- 
ing its divisions counterparts of each other; and as it 
was confessedly the object of the artist to display his 
labour, and the greatness of the effort by which he had 
subdued nature, it could not possibly be more conspic- 
uous than in such shapes of land and water as were most 
unnatural and violent. Hence arose the flat terrace, the 
square and octagon pool, and all those geometric figures 
which were intended to contrast and not to assimilate 
with any scenes in nature. Yet within this small enclos- 
ure an unity of design was strictly preserved, and few 
attempts made to extend it farther than the garden wall. 

From the prodigious difference of taste in gardening 
betwixt the last and the present century, it seems, at first 
sight, almost impossible to lay down any fixed princi- 
ples ; but, on duly considering the subject, it will be 
found that in this instance, as well as in many others, 
mankind are apt to fly from one extreme to the other; 
thus, because straight lines, and highly finished and cor- 
respondent parts prevailed in the ancient style, some 
modern improvers have mistaken crookedness for the 
line of beauty, and slovenly carelessness for natural ease; 
they call every species of regularity formal, and, with 
the hackneyed assertion that " nature abhors a straight 
line," they fatigue the eye with continual curvatures. 

There appears to be in the human mind a natural love 
of order and symmetry. Children who at first draw 
a house upon a slate generally represent it with corre- 
spondent parts. It is so with the infancy of taste ; those 
who, during the early part of life, have given little at- 
tention to objects of taste, are captivated with the reg- 



4-6 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

ularity and symmetry of correspondent parts, without 
any knowledge of congruity or a harmony of parts with 
the whole. This accounts for those numerous specimens 
of bad taste which are too commonly observable in the 
neighbourhood of great towns, where we see Grecian 
villas spreading their little Gothic wings, and red-brick 
castles supported by Grecian pavilions; but though 
congruity may be banished, symmetry is never forgotten. 
If such be the love of symmetry in the human mind, 
it surely becomes a fair object of inquiry, how far it 
ought to be admitted or rejected in modern gardening. 
The following observation from Montesquieu, on 
Taste,'° seems to set the matter in a fair light: 

"Wherever symmetry is useful to the soul, and may 
assist her functions, it is agreeable to her; but wherever 
it is useless, it becomes distasteful, because it takes away 
variety. Therefore, things that we see in succession 
ought to have variety, for our soul has no difficulty in 
seeing them ; those, on the contrary, that we see at one 
glance, ought to have symmetry: thus, at one glance 
we see the front of a building, a parterre, a temple ; in 
such things there is always a symmetry which pleases 
the soul by the facility it gives her of taking in the whole 
object at once." 

It is upon this principle that I have frequently 
advised the most perfect symmetry in those small 
flower-gardens which are generally placed in the front 
of a greenhouse, or orangery, in some inner part of 
the grounds ; where, being secluded from the general 
scenery, they become a kind of episode to the great and 
more conspicuous parts of the place. In such small 
enclosures irregularity would appear like affectation. 
Symmetry is also allowable, and indeed necessary, at 
or near the front of a regular building; because, where 



Formal Gardening 47 

that displays correspondent parts, if the lines in con- 
tact do not also correspond, the house itself will appear 
twisted and awry. Yet this degree of symmetry ought 
to go no farther than a small distance from the house, 
and should be confined merely to such objects as are 
confessedly works of art for the uses of man ; such as 
a road, a walk, or an ornamental fence, whether of 
wood or iron; but it is not necessary that it should 
extend to plantations, canals, or over the natural shape 
of the ground. " In forming plans for embellishing a 
field, an artist without taste employs straight lines, cir- 
cles, and squares, because these look best upon paper. 
He perceives not that to humour and adorn nature is 
the perfection of his art; and that nature, neglecting 
regularity, distributes her objects in great variety, with 
a bold hand. (Some old gardens were disposed like the 
human frame; alleys, like legs and arms, answering 
each other; the great walk in the middle representing 
the trunk of the body.) Nature, indeed, in organised 
bodies comprehended under one view, studies regu- 
larity ; which, for the same reason, ought to be studied 
in architecture; but in large objects, which cannot be 
surveyed but in parts, and by succession, regularity and 
uniformity would be useless properties, because they 
cannot be discovered by the eye. Nature, therefore, in 
her large works, neglects these properties ; and in copy- 
ing nature, the artist ought to neglect them." " 

Lathom. It is hardly to be conceived how much this 
view to the north will be improved by the removal of 
the large square pond. [Plate vi.] Water reflecting only 
the sky (which is the case with this and every other 
pond raised above the level of the natural ground) acts 
like a mass of light placed betwixt the eye and the more 
distant objects. Every one knows the effect that a Ian- 



48 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

tern or a torch has, to prevent our seeing what is be- 
yond it; and this same cause operates in all cases in 
proportion to the quantity of rays reflected, whether 
from water, from snow, from white paling, or any other 
luminous object. This accounts for the pleasure we 
derive from seeing water at a proper distance, and of a 
natural shape. Water is said to attract our notice with 
irresistible power ; but the pond at Lathom, placed in 
the foreground, engrosses too much of the landscape, 
and is neither sufficiently pleasing in its shape nor 
natural in its situation to deserve the place it holds as 
the leading feature of the scene. 

The management of the view to the north will fur- 
ther serve to elucidate another general principle in gar- 
dening, viz. that although we do not require a strict 
symmetry in the two sides of the landscape, yet there 
is a certain balance of composition," without which 
the eye is not perfectly satisfied. The two screens of 
wood beyond the pond may be varied and contrasted ; 
that to the west may be left as a thick and impenetrable 
mass of trees and underwood, while a great part of that 
to the east should be converted into an open grove ; 
thus destroying the formality, while the balance of 
composition may still be preserved. 



Chapter VII 

Approaches '' 



THE road by which a stranger is supposed to pass 
through the park or lawn to the house is called 
an approach; and there seems the same relation betwixt 
the approach and the house externally that there is 
internally betwixt the hall or entrance and the several 
apartments to which it leads. If the hall be too large 
or too small, too mean or too much ornamented for 
the style of the house, there is a manifest incongruity 
in the architecture, by which good taste will be 
offended ; but if the hall be so situated as not to con- 
nect well with the several apartments to which it ought 
to lead, it will then be defective in point of conven- 
ience. 

So it is with respect to an approach : — it ought to 
be convenient, interesting, and in strict harmony with 
the character and situation of the mansion to which it 
belongs. 

There seems to be as much absurdity in carrying an 
approach round, to include those objects which do not 
naturally fall within its reach, as there was formerly in 
cutting through a hill, to obtain a straight line point- 
ing to the hall door. A line of red gravel across a lawn 
is apt to offend, by cutting it into parts, and destroy- 
ing the unity of verdure, so pleasing to the eye. But 
I have in some places seen the aversion of showing 
a road carried to such a length, that a gap has been dug 
in the lawn, by way of road ; and, in order to hide it, 



50 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

the approach to a palace must be made along a ditch. 
In other places, I have seen what is called a grass 
approach, which is a broad, hard road, thinly covered 
with bad verdure, or even moss, to hide it from the 
sight ; and thus, in a dusky evening, after wandering 
about the park in search of a road, we suddenly find 
ourselves upon grass, at the door of the mansion, with- 
out any appearance of mortals ever having before 
approached its solitary entrance. 

Thus do improvers seem to have mistaken the most 
obvious meaning of an approach, which is simply this 
— a road to the house. If that road be greatly cir- 
cuitous, no one will use it when a much nearer is dis- 
covered : but if there be two roads of nearly the same 
length, and one be more beautiful than the other, the 
man of taste will certainly prefer it ; while, perhaps, 
the clown, insensible to every object around him, will 
indifferently vise either. 

The requisites to a good approach may be thus 
enumerated : 

First. An approach is a road to the house ; and to 
that principally. 

Secondly. If it is not naturally the nearest road 
possible, it ought artificially to be made impossible to 
go a nearer. 

Thirdly. The artificial obstacles which make this 
road the nearest ought to appear natural. 

Fourthly. Where an approach quits the highroad, 
it ought not to break from it at right angles, or in such 
a manner as robs the entrance of importance ; but 
rather at some bend of the public road, from whence 
a lodge, or gate, may be more conspicuous ; and where 
the highroad may appear to branch from the approach, 
rather than the approach from the highroad. 



Approaches 



51 



Fifthly. After the approach enters the park, it should 
avoid skirting along its boundary, which betrays the 
want of extent or unity of property. 

Sixthly. The house, unless very large and magni- 
ficent, should not be seen at so great a distance as to 
make it appear much smaller than it really is. 

Seventhly. The house should be at first presented in 
a pleasing point of view. 

Eighthly. As soon as the house is visible from the 
approach, there should be no temptation to quit it — 
which will ever be the case if the road be at all cir- 
cuitous — unless sufficient obstacles, such as water or 
inaccessible ground, appear to justify its course. 

I shall not here speak of the convenience or incon- 
venience of a large town situated very near a park, but 
of the influence that the proximity of a large town has 
on the character of a park, which is very considerable, 
because it must either serve to increase or to diminish 
its importance ; the latter is at present the case with 
respect to Tatton and Knutsford. 

The first essential of greatness in a place is the ap- 
pearance of united and uninterrupted property, and it 
is in vain that this is studied within the pale, if it is too 
visibly contradicted without it. It is not to be ex- 
pected that a large manufacturing town, like Knutsford, 
can be the entire property of one individual ; but the 
proportion of interest belonging to the adjoining 
family should impress the mind with a sense of its 
influence. 

There are various ways by which this effect is 
occasionally produced, and 1 will mention some of 
them, viz. the church and churchyard may be deco- 
rated in a style that shall in some degree correspond 
with that of the mansion ; — the market-house, or 



52 The Art of Landscape Gardening 



other public edifice, an obelisk, or even a mere stone, 
with distances, may be made an ornament to the town, 
and bear the arms of the family ; or the same arms may 
be the sign of the principal inn of the place. 



Chapter VIII 

Affinity betwixt Painting and Gardening 



IT has already been remarked in this volume that 
there ought to be some difference betwixt a park 
and a forest ; and as the whole of that false and mis- 
taken theory, which Mr. Knight endeavours to intro- 
duce by confounding the two ideas, proceeds from not 
duly considering the degree of affinity betwixt painting 
and gardening, I shall transcribe a few passages from 
manuscripts, written long before I saw his poem ; 
although the inquiry was originally suggested by con- 
versations I have occasionally had, both with Mr. 
Knight and Mr. Price, at their respective seats in the 
county of Hereford. 

A great difference betwixt a scene in nature and a 
picture on canvas will arise from the following consid- 
erations: 

First. The spot from whence the view is taken is in 
a fixed state to the painter, but the gardener surveys his 
scenery while in motion, and from different windows 
in the same front he sees objects in different situations; 
therefore, to give an accurate portrait of the gardener's 
improvement would require pictures from each separ- 
ate window, and even a different drawing at the most 
trifling change of situation, either in the approach, the 
walks, or the drives, about each place. 

Secondly. The quantity of view, or field of vision, is 
much greater than any picture will admit. 

Thirdly. The view from an eminence down a steep 



54 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

hill is not to be represented in painting, although it is 
often one of the most pleasing circumstances of natural 
landscape. 

Fourthly. The light which the painter may bring 
from any point of the compass must, in real scenery, 
depend on the time of day. It must also be remem- 
bered that the light of a picture can only be made 
strong by contrast of shade ; while in nature every ob- 
ject may be strongly illumined without destroying the 
composition or disturbing the keeping. And, 

Lastly. The foreground, which, by framing the view, 
is absolutely necessary to the picture, is often totally 
deficient, or seldom such as a painter chooses to repre- 
sent; since the neat gravel walk or close-mown lawn 
would ill supply the place, in painting, of a rotten tree, 
a bunch of docks, or a broken road, passing under a 
steep bank, covered with briers, nettles, and ragged 
thorns. 

Real landscape, or that which my art professes to 
improve, is not always capable of being represented on 
paper or canvas ; for although the rules for good nat- 
ural landscape may be found in the best painters' works, 
in which 

*'we ne'er shall find 
Dull uniformity, contrivance quaint. 
Or labour'd littleness ; but contrasts broad. 
And careless lines, whose undulating forms 
Play though the varied canvas " ; 

Mason. 

yet Monsieur Gerardin''* is greatly mistaken when he 
directs that no scene in nature should be attempted 
till it has first been painted. And I apprehend the cause 
of his mistake to be this : in an artificial landscape the 
foreground is the most important object; indeed, some 



Affinity Between Painting and Gardening 55 

of the most beautiful pictures of Claude de Lorraine con- 
sist of a dark foreground, with a very small opening 
to distant country. But this ought not to be copied in 
the principal view from the windows of a large house, 
because it can only have its effect from one window out 
of many ; and, consequently, the others must all be 
sacrificed to this sole object. In a picture, the eye is 
confined within certain limits, and unity is preserved 
by artificial means, incapable of being applied to real 
landscape, in all the extent which Monsieur Gerardin 
recommends. 

By landscape, I mean a view capable of being repre- 
sented in painting. It consists of two, three, or more 
well-marked distances, each separated from the other by 
an unseen space, which the imagination delights to fill 
up with fancied beauties that may not perhaps exist 
in reality. 

** Of Nature's various scenes, the painter culls 
That for his favourite theme, where the fair whole 
Is broken into ample parts, and bold ; 
Where, to the eye, three well-mark' d distances 
Spread their peculiar colouring." 

Mason. 

Here Mr. Mason supposes an affinity between paint- 
ing and gardening, which will be found, on a more 
minute examination, not strictly to exist. 

The landscape painter considers all these three dis- 
tances as objects equally within the power of his art; but 
his composition must have a foreground; and though 
it may only consist of a single tree, a rail, or a piece of 
broken road, it is absolutely necessary to the painter's 
landscape. 

The subjects of the landscape gardener are very dif- 
ferent ; though his scenery requires, also, to be broken 



56 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

into distinct parts or distances, because the eye is never 
long delighted, unless the imagination has some share 
in its pleasure: an intricacy and entanglement of parts 
heighten the satisfaction. The landscape gardener may 
also class his distances under three distinct characters, 
but very different from those of the painter. The first 
includes that part of the scene which is in his power to 
improve; the second, that which is not in his power 
to prevent being injured ; and the third, that which 
is not in the power of himself, or any other, either to 
injure or improve. The part which the painter calls his 
middle distance is often that which the landscape gar- 
dener finds under the control of others; and the fore- 
ground of the painter can seldom be introduced into 
the composition of the gardener's landscape, from the 
whole front of a house, because the best landscapes of 
Claude will be found to owe their beauty to that kind 
of foreground which could only be applied to one par- 
ticular window of a house, and would exclude all view 
from that adjoining. 

The enthusiasm for picturesque effect seems to have 
so completely bewildered the author of the poem 
already mentioned that he not only mistakes the essen- 
tial difference between the landscape painter and the 
landscape gardener, but appears even to forget that a 
dwelling-house is an object of comfort and convenience, 
for the purposes of habitation, and not merely the 
frame to a landscape, or the foreground to a rural 
picture. The want of duly considering the affinity 
between painting and gardening is the source of those 
errors and fiilse principles which I find too frequently 
prevailing in the admirers of or connoisseurs in paint- 
ing : and I do not hesitate to acknowledge that I once 
supposed the two arts to be more intimately connected 



AfFINIT/ iih'IWKl-.N PAJNT/Nr, AND GaROENING 57 

than my practice and experience have since confirmed. 
I am not less an admirer of those scenes which paint- 
ing represents ; but I have discovered that utility must 
often take the lead of beauty, and convenience be pre- 
ferred to picturesque effect, in the neighbourhood of 
man's habitation. Gardening must include the two 
opposite characters of native wildness and artificial 
comfort, each adapted to the genius and character of 
the place, yet ever mindful that, near the residence 
of man, convenience, and not picturesque effect, must 
Jjave the preference, wherever they are placed in com- 
petition with each other. 



Chapter IX 

Sources of Pleasure in Landscape Gardening 



AFTER sedulously endeavouring to discover the 
causes of the pleasure that the mind receives 
from landscape gardening, I think it may occasionally 
be attributed to each of the following different heads: 

I. Congruity ; or a proper adaptation of the several 
parts to the whole ; and that whole to the character, 
situation, and circumstances of the place and its 
possessor. 

II. Utility. This includes convenience, comfort, 
neatness, and everything that conduces to the purposes 
of habitation with elegance. 

III. Order. Including correctness and finishing; the 
cultivated mind is shocked by such things as would 
not be visible to the clown : thus, an awkward bend 
in a walk, or lines which ought to be parallel, and 
are not so, give pain ; as a serpentine walk through 
an avenue, or along the course of a straight wall or 
building. 

IV. Symmetry ; or that correspondence of parts ex- 
pected in the front of buildings, particularly Grecian, 
which, however formal in a painting, require similar- 
ity and uniformity of parts to please the eye, even of 
children. So natural is the love of order and of sym- 
metry to the human mind that it is not surprising it 
should have extended itself into our gardens, where 
nature itself was made subservient by cutting trees 
into regular shapes, planting them in rows, or at exact 



Sources of Pleasure in Landscape Gardening 59 

equal distances, and frequently of different kinds 
in alternate order. 

These first four heads may be considered as generally 
adverse to picturesque beauty, yet they are not, there- 
fore, to be discarded. There are situations in which the 
ancient style of gardening is very properly preserved : 
witness the academic groves and classic walks in our 
universities; and I should doubt the taste of any im- 
prover, who could despise the congruity, the utility, the 
order, and the symmetry of the small garden at Trinity 
College, Oxford, because the clipped hedges and straight 
walks would not look well in a picture. 

V. Picturesque Effect. This head, which has been 
so fully and ably considered by Mr. Price, furnishes 
the gardener with breadth of light and shade, forms of 
groups, outline, colouring, balance of composition, and 
occasional advantage from roughness and decay, the 
effect of time and age. 

VI. Intricacy. A word frequently used by me in my 
Red Books, which Mr. Price has very correctly de- 
fined to be "that disposition of objects, which, by a par- 
tial and uncertain concealment, excites and nourishes 
curiosity." 

VII. Simplicity; or that disposition of objects which, 
without exposing all of them equally to view at once, 
may lead the eye to each by an easy gradation, without 
flutter, confusion, or perplexity. 

VIII. Variety. This may be gratified by natural 
landscape, in a thousand ways that painting cannot 
imitate; since it is observed of the best painters' works 
that there is a sameness in their compositions, and even 
their trees are all of one general kind, while the variety 
of nature's productions is endless, and ought to be duly 
studied. 



6o The Art ok Lanoscapk Garokninc; 

IX. I\'ovc'If_y. Although a great source of pleasure, 
this is the most difficult and most dangerous tor an artist 
to attempt; it is apt to lead him into conceits and whims 
which lose their novelty after the first surprise. 

X. Contrast supplies the place of noveltv, hv a sud- 
den and unexpected change of scenery, provided the 
transitions are neither too frequent nor too violent. 

XI. Continuity. This seems evidently to be a source 
of pleasure, from the delight expressed in a long avenue 
and the disgust at an abrupt break between objects that 
look as if they ought to be united, as in the chasm 
betwixt two large woods, or the separation betwixt two 
pieces of water; and even a walk, which terminates 
without affording a continued line of communication, 
is always unsatisfactory. 

XII. Association. This is one of the most impressive 
sources of delight, whether excited by local accident, as 
the spot on which some public character performed his 
part; by the remains of antiquity, as the ruin of a clois- 
ter or a castle; but more particularly by that personal 
attachment to long-known objects, perhaps indifferent 
in themselves, as the favourite seat, the tree, the walk, 
or the spot endeared by the remembrance of past events. 
Objects of this kind, however trifling in themselves, are 
often preferred to the most beautiful scenes that paint- 
ing can represent or gardening create. Such partialities 
should be respected and indulged, since true taste, which 
is generally attended by great sensibility, ought to be the 
guardian of it in others. 

X I I I . Grandeur. This is rarely picturesque, whether 
it consists in greatness of dimension, extent of prospect, 
or in splendid and numerous objects of magnificence; 
but it is a source of pleasure mixed with the sublime. 
There is, however, no error so common as an attempt 



S(ji/Rci:s or I'lkasure in Landscai'e Garukninc; 6i 

to substitute extent for beauty in park scenery, which 
proves the partiality of the human mind to admire what- 
ever is vast or great. 

XIV. Appropriation. A word ridiculed by Mr. Price 
as lately coined by me, to describe extent of property ; 
yet the appearance and display of such extent is a source 
of pleasure not to be disregarded, since every individual 
who possesses anything, whether it be mental endow- 
ments, or power, or property, obtains respect in propor- 
tion as his possessions are known, provided he does not 

•too vainly boast of them ; and it is the sordid miser only 
who enjoys for himself alone, wishing the world to be 
ignorant of his wealth. The pleasure of appropriation is 
gratified in viewing a landscape which cannot be injured 
by the malice or bad taste of a neighbouring intruder: 
thus an ugly barn, a ploughed field, or any obtrusive 
object which disgraces the scenery of a park, looks as if 
it belonged to another, and therefore robs the mind of 
the pleasure derived from appropriation, or the unity 
and continuity of unmixed property. 

XV. Animation ; or that pleasure experienced from 
seeing life and motion, whether the gliding or dashing 
of water, the sportive play of animals, or the wavy 
motion of trees ; and particularly the playsomeness 
peculiar to youth, in the two last instances, affords 
additional delight. 

XVI. And lastly, the seasons, and times of day, 
which are very different to the gardener and the 
painter. The noontide hour has its charms, though 
the shadows are neither long nor broad, and none but 
a painter or a sportsman will prefer the sear and yel- 
low leaves of autumn to the fragrant blossoms and 
reviving delights of spring, " the youth of the year." 



II 

THEORY AND PRACTICE OF 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING 



Preface 

TO 

THEORT AND PRACTICE 



IN every other polite art there are certain estab- 
lished rules or general principles to which the 
professor may appeal in support of his opinions, but 
in landscape gardening every one delivers his senti- 
ments or displays his taste as whim or caprice may 
dictate, without having studied the subject, or even 
thought it capable of being reduced to any fixed rules. 
Hence it has been doubted whether each proprietor 
of his own estate may not be the most proper person 
to plan its improvement. 

Had the art still continued under the direction of 
working gardeners, or nurserymen, the proprietor 
might supersede the necessity of such landscape gar- 
deners, provided he had previously made this art his 
study ; but not (as it is frequently asserted) because 
the gentleman who constantly resides at his place must 
be a much better judge of the means of improving it 
than the professor whose visits are only occasional : 
for if this reason for a preference were granted, we 
might with equal truth assert that the constant com- 
panion of a sick man has an advantage over his phy- 
sician. 

Improvements may be suggested by any one, but 
the professor only acquires a knowledge of effects 
before they are produced, and a facility in producing 
them by various methods, expedients, and resources. 



the result ot' study, observation, utui experience, lie 
knows what can and what cannot be accompHshed 
within certain limits. He ought to know what to adopt 
and what to reject; he must endeavour to accommo- 
date his plans to the wishes of the person who consults 
him, although, in some cases, they may not strictly 
accord with his own taste."' 

Good sense may exist without good tastey^ yet, from 
their intimate connexion, many persons are as much 
offended at having their taste as their understanding 
disputed ; hence, the most ignorant being generally 
the most obstinate, I have occasionally found that, as 
" a little learning is a dangerous thing," a little taste is 
a troublesome one. 

Both taste and understanding require cultivation and 
improvement. Natural taste, like natural genius, may 
exist to a certain degree, but without study, observa- 
tion, and experience, they lead to error. Hiere is, per- 
haps, no circumstance which so strongly marks the 
decline of public taste as the extravagant applause 
bestowed on earlv efforts of unlettered and unculti- 
vated genius. Extraordinary instances of prematurity 
deserve to be patronised, fostered, and encouraged, 
provided they excite admiration from excellence, inde- 
pendent of peculiar circumstances ; but the public 
taste is endangered bv the circulation of such crude 
productions as are curious only from the vouth or 
ignorance of their authors. Such an apologv to the 
learned will not compensate for the defects of grammar 
in poetry, nor to the scientific artist for the defects of 
proportion and design in architecture ; while the incor- 
rectness of such efforts is hardlv visible to the bulk of 
mankind, incapable of comparing their excellence with 
works of established reputation. Thus in poetry, in 



Preface 67 

painting, and in architecture, false taste is propagated 
by the sanction given to mediocrity. 

Its dangerous tendency, added to its frequency, must 
plead my excuse for taking notice of the following vul- 
gar mode of expression : " I do not profess to under- 
stand these matters, but I know what pleases me." 
This may be the standard of perfection with those who 
are content to gratify their own taste without inquiring 
how it may affect others ; but the man of good taste 
endeavours to investigate the causes of the pleasure he 
receives, and to inquire whether others receive pleasure 
also. He knows that the same principles which direct 
taste in the polite arts direct the judgement in morality; 
in short, that a knowledge of what is good, what is bad, 
and what is indifferent, whether in actions, in manners, 
in language, in arts, or science, constitutes the basis of 
good taste and marks the distinction between the higher 
ranks of polished society and the inferior orders of 
mankind, whose daily labours allow no leisure for other 
enjoyments than those of mere sensual, individual, and 
personal gratification. 

Those who delight in depreciating the present by 
comparisons with former times may, perhaps, observe 
a decline of taste in many of the polite arts; but surely 
in architecture and gardening, the present era furnishes 
more examples of attention to comfort and conven- 
ience than are to be found in the plans of Palladio, 
Vitruvius, or Le Notre, who, in the display of useless 
symmetry, often forgot the requisites of habitation. The 
leading feature in the good taste of modern times is 
the just sense of general utility. 

A few observations are subjoined to mark those 
errors, or absurdities in modern gardening and archi- 
tecture, to which 1 have never willingly subscribed, and 



68 Preface 

from which it will easily be ascertained how much of 
what is called the improvement of any place in the list,'^ 
may properly be attributed to my advice. It is rather 
upon my opinions in writing than on the partial and 
imperfect manner in which my plans have sometimes 
been executed that I wish my fame to be established. 

1 . There is no error more prevalent in modern garden- 
ing, or more frequently carried to excess, than taking 
away hedges to unite many small fields into one extens- 
ive and naked lawn, before plantations are made to 
give it the appearance of a park ; and where ground is 
subdivided by sunk fences, imaginary freedom is dearly 
purchased at the expense of actual confinement. 

2. The baldness and nakedness round the house is 
part of the same mistaken system, of concealing fences 
to gain extent. A palace, or even an elegant villa, in 
a grass-field, appears to me incongruous ; yet I have 
seldom had sufficient influence to correct this common 
error. 

3. An approach which does not evidently lead to the 
house, or which does not take the shortest course, cannot 
be right. This rule must be taken with certain limitations. 
The shortest road across a lawn to a house will seldom 
be found graceful, and often vulgar. A road bordered 
by trees in the form of an avenue may be straight with- 
out being vulgar; and grandeur, not grace or elegance, 
is the expression expected to be produced. 

4. A poor man's cottage, divided into what is called 
a pair of lodges^ is a mistaken expedient to mark import- 
ance in the entrance to a park. 

5. The entrance-gate should not be visible from the 
mansion, unless it opens into a courtyard. 

6. The plantation surrounding a place, called a belty 
I have never advised ; nor have I ever willingly marked 



Preface 69 

a drive, or walk, completely round the verge of a park, 
except in small villas, where a dry path round a person's 
own field is always more interesting to him than any other 
walk. 

7. Small plantations of trees, surrounded by a fence, 
are the best expedients to form groups, because trees 
planted singly seldom grow well; neglect of thinning 
and removing the fence has produced that ugly deform- 
ity called a clump. 

8. Water on an eminence, or on the side of a hill, is 
among the most common errors of Mr. Brown's fol- 
lowers : in numerous instances I have been allowed to 
remove such pieces of water from the hills to the val- 
leys, but in many my advice has not prevailed. 

9. Deception may be allowable in imitating the works 
of nature. Thus artificial rivers, lakes, and rock scenery 
can only be great by deception, and the mind acquiesces 
in the fraud after it is detected ; but in works of art every 
trick ought to be avoided. Sham churches, sham ruins, 
sham bridges, and everything which appears what it is 
not, disgusts when the trick is discovered. 

10. In buildings of every kind the character should 
be strictly observed. No incongruous mixture can be 
justified. To add Grecian to Gothic, or Gothic to 
Grecian, is equally absurd; and a sharp-pointed arch 
to a garden-gate or a dairy-window, however frequently 
it occurs, is not less offensive than Grecian architecture 
in which the standard rules of relative proportion are 
neglected or violated. 

11. The perfection of landscape gardening consists 
in the fullest attention to these principles, — Utility ^ 
ProportioUy and Unity, or harmony of parts to the 
whole. 



Chapter I 



Introduction — General Principles — Utility 
Scale — Examples of Comparative Proportion 
Use of Perspective 



THE theory and practice of landscape gardening 
have seldom fallen under the consideration of the 
same author ; because those who have delivered their 
opinions in writing on this art have had little practical 
experience, and few of its professors have been able to 
deduce their rules from theoretical principles. To such 
persons indeed had its practice been committed that 
it required no common degree of fortitude and perse- 
verance to elevate the art of landscape gardening to its 
proper rank and amongst those which distinguish the 
pleasures of civilised society from the pursuits of savage 
and barbarous nations. 

Not deterred by the sneer of ignorance^ the contra- 
diction of obstinacy, the nonsense of vanity, or the 
prevalence of false taste, I made the attempt; and with 
the counsels and advice of men of science, and the 
countenance of some of the first characters in the 
kingdom, a very large portion of its scenery has been 
committed to my care for improvement. Hence it 
might be expected that, with some degree of confidence, 
I now should deliver the result of my observations ; 
yet, from the difficulties continually increasing with my 
knowledge of the subject, I submit this work to the 
public with far more diffidence than I did my former 



72 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

volume : because in this, as in every other study, reflec- 
tion and observation on those things which we do 
know teach us to regret our circumscribed knowledge, 
and the difficulty of reducing to fixed principles the 
boundless variety of the works of nature. 

If any general principles could be established in this 
art, I think that they might be deduced from the joint 
consideration of relative fitness or utility and compara- 
tive proportion or scale; the former may be referred to 
the mind, the latter to the eye, yet these two must be 
inseparable. 

Under relative fitness I include the comfort, the 
convenience, the character, and every circumstance of 
a place that renders it the desirable habitation of man 
and adapts it to the uses of each individual proprietor ; 
for it has occasionally happened to me to have been 
consulted on the same subject by two different propri- 
etors, when my advice has been materially varied, to 
accord with the respective circumstances or intentions 
of each. 

The second is that leading principle which depends 
on sight, and which I call comparative proportion ; be- 
cause all objects appear great or small by comparison 
only, or as they have a reference to other objects with 
which they are liable to be compared. 

At Holkham, about twenty years ago, the lofty 
obelisk seen from the portico appeared to be sur- 
rounded by shrubbery, but on a nearer approach I 
found that these apparent shrubs were really large 
trees, and only depressed by the greater height of the 
obelisk. A similar instance occurs at Welbeck ; the 
large grove of oaks, seen from the house across 
the water, consists of trees most remarkable for their 
straight and lofty stems ; yet, to a stranger, their 



Theory and Practice 



73 



magnitude is apparently lessened by an enormous large 
and flourishing ash, which rises like a single tree out 
of a bank of brushwood. When I was first consulted 
respecting Wentworth House, the lawn behind it ap- 
peared circumscribed, and the large trees which sur- 
rounded that lawn appeared depressed by four tall 
obelisks : these have since been removed, the stately 
trees have assumed their true magnitude, and the effect 
of confinement is done away. 

I have illustrated these observations by the example 
of an obelisk [Fig. 4], because its height being inde- 




Fig. 4. Diagram to shew the use of the human figure as a scale fcr measuring 
objects. 



terminate, it may mislead the eye as a scale ; since, 
according to its size and situation, the very same design 
may serve for a lamp-post, a milestone in the market- 
place of a city, an ornament to a public square, or it 
may be raised on the summit of a hill, a monument 
to a nation's glory. 



74 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

The necessity of observing scale or comparative 
proportion may be further elucidated by a reference 
to West Wycombe, a place generally known, from its 
vicinitv to the road to Oxford. Amongst the profusion 
of buildings and ornament which the false taste of the 
last age lavished upon this spot, many were correct in 
design, and, considered separately, in proportion ; but 
even many of the designs, although perfect in them- 
selves, were rendered absurd from inattention either to 
the scale or situation of the surrounding objects. The 
summit of a hill is covered by a large mass of Grecian 
architecture, out of which apparently rises a small 
square projection, with a ball at the top, not unlike the 
kind of cupolas misplaced over stables;'^ but in reality 
this building is the tower of a church, and the ball a 
room sufficiently large to contain eight or ten people. 

This comparative proportion, or, in other words, this 
attention to scale or measurement, is not only necessary 
with regard to objects near each other, but it forms the 
basis of all improvement depending on perspective, by 
the laws of which it is well known that objects diminish 
in apparent size in proportion to their distance: vet the 
application of this principle may not, perhaps, have 
been so universally considered, I shall, therefore, men- 
tion a few instances in which I have availed myself of 
its effects. 

At Hurlingham, on the banks of the Thames, the 
lawn in front of the house was necessarily contracted by 
the vicinity of the river, yet being too large to be kept 
under the scythe and roller, and too small to be fed 
by a flock of sheep, I recommended the introduction 
of Alderney cows only. The effect is that of giving 
imaginary extent to the place, which is thus measured 
below a true standard, because if distance will make 



Theory and Practice 75 

a large animal appear small, so the distance will be 
apparently extended by the smallness of the animal. 

The same reasoning induced me to prefer, at Stoke 
Pogies, a bridge of more arches than one over a river 
which is the work of art, whilst in natural rivers a single 
arch is often preferable, because in the latter we wish to 
increase the magnitude of the bridge, whilst in the former 
we endeavour to give importance to the artificial river. 

Another instance of the necessity of attending to 
comparative scale occurred near the metropolis, where 
a» gentleman wished to purchase a distant field for the 
purpose of planting out a tile-kiln, but 1 convinced him 
that during the life of man the nuisance could never be 
hid from his windows by planting near the kiln, whilst 
a few trees, judiciously placed within his own ground, 
would effect the purpose the year after they were planted. 

The art of landscape gardening is in no instance 
more intimately connected with that of painting than in 
whatever relates to perspective, or the difference between 
the real and apparent magnitude of the objects, arising 
from their relative situations; for without some atten- 
tion to perspective, both the dimensions and the dis- 
tances of objects will be changed and confounded. Few 
instances having occurred to me where this can be more 
forcibly elucidated than in the ground at the fort near 
Bristol, I shall avail myself of the following observa- 
tions to shew what can and what cannot be done by 
a judicious application of the laws of perspective. 

When I first visited the fort, I found it surrounded 
by vast chasms in the ground, and immense heaps of 
earth and broken rock: these had been made to form 
the cellars and foundations to certain additions to the 
city of Bristol, which were afterwards relinquished. The 
first idea that presented itself was to restore the ground 



76 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

to its original shape; but a little reflection on the char- 
acter and situation of the place naturally led me to 
inquire whether some considerable advantage might not 
be derived from the mischief which had thus been 
already done. 

Few situations command so varied, so rich, and so 
extensive a view as the fort. Situated on the summit 
of a hill which looks over the vast city of Bristol, it 
formerly surveyed the river and the beautiful country 
surrounding it without being incommoded by too much 
view of the city itself; but the late prodigious increase 
of buildings had so injured the prospect of this house 



that its original advantages of situation were almost de- 
stroyed, and there was some reason to doubt whether 
it could ever be made desirable either as a villa or as 
a country residence, because it was not only exposed to 
the unsightly rows of houses in Park Street and Berke- 
ley Square, but it was liable to be overlooked by the 
numerous crowds of people who claimed a right of foot- 
path through the park immediately before the windows. 
It was, therefore, as public as any house in any square 
or street of Bristol. If the earth had been simply put 
back to the places from whence it had been taken, the 
expense of its removal would have been greater than the 
method which occurred to me as more advisable; viz. 
to fill up the chasms partly, by levelling the sides into 
them, and raising a bank with a wall to exclude the foot- 
path, as shewn in the accompanying section [Fig. 5], 



Theory and Practice 



77 



where the dotted line shews the original shape of the 
ground; the zigzag line, holes from fifteen to twenty 
feet deep; the shaded line, the shape of the ground 
as altered. 

By this expedient we hide the objectionable part of 
the view, and by planting the raised heap of earth we 
produce a degree of privacy and seclusion in this newly 
created valley within the pleasure-grounds which was 
never before known or expected in this open situation. 
The pleasure-ground, immediately near the house, is 
separated from the park by a wall, against which the 
earth is everywhere laid as before described, so as to 
carry the eye over the heads of persons who may be 
walking in the adjoining footpath. This wall not only 
hides them from the house, but also prevents their over- 
looking the pleasure-ground. Yet, notwithstanding this 
great utility, this absolute necessity, the appearance of 
such a wall, from the park, gives an air of confinement, 
and the only expedient by which this might be well 
remedied would be a total change in the character of 
the place, or, rather, by altering the house to make it 
what its name and situation denote: for if the fort were 
restored to its original character of a castle or fortress, 
this wall, instead of being objectionable, would then 
act as a terrace, and contribute to the general effect of 
extent and the magnificence of the whole. 

Although, from the nature of this work, it is difficult 
to preserve any connecting series of arrangement, yet 
it may not be improper, in this place, to mention a few 
remarkable instances of removing earth and altering 
the shape of the surface of ground, especially as there 
is no part of my profession attended with so much 
expense, or more frequently objected to, because so 
often mismanaged. 



yS The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Where a ridge of ground very near the eye inter- 
cepts the view of a valley below, it is wonderful how 
great an effect may be produced by a very trifling 
removal of the ridge only ; thus, at Moccas Court, a 
very small quantity of earth concealed from the house 
the view of that beautiful reach of the River Wye, 
which has since been opened. At Oldbury Court the 
view is opened into a romantic glen by the same kind 
of operation. At Catchtrench the same thing is advised, 
to shew the opposite hills ; and in this instance it may 
appear surprising that the removal of a few yards of 
earth was sufficient to display a vast extent of distant 
prospect. 

But this effect must depend on the natural shape of 
the surface near the eye ; for example, if the shape be 
that of the upper line a [Fig. 6], the object at f can- 




Fig. 6. 

not be seen without the removal of all the earth 
between the dotted line and the surface, but if the 
shape be that of b, the removal of the part not shaded 
will not be sufficient to shew the valley; and it is not 
always desirable to see the whole surface ; on the con- 
trary, it is better that a part should be concealed than 
that the whole should be shewn foreshortened, which is 
always the case in looking down or up an inclined 
plane. 

The most arduous operations of removing ground 
are generally those where the geometric taste of garden- 



Theory and Practice 79 

ing had distorted the natural surface, and where it 
would now be attended with much greater trouble and 
expense to restore the ground to its original shape 
than had been formerly dedicated to make those slopes 
and regular forms, which are more like the works of 
a military engineer than of a painter or a gardener. 

Few instances have occurred to me where great 
expense in moving ground was requisite to produce 
pleasing effects, and it is always with reluctance that I 
advise much alteration in the surface of ground, because, 
Jjowever great the labour or expensive the process, it 
is a part of the art from which the professor can derive 
but little credit, since his greatest praise must be that 
the ground looks, when finished, as if art had never 
interfered. 

When I was first consulted, at Sundridge Park, by 
Mr. Lind, the former possessor, the house, which has 
since been pulled down, stood on the south side of the 
valley ; and those who knew the spot despaired of 
finding a situation for a house on the opposite side 
of the valley, that the rooms might have a southern 
aspect, as the bank was too steep to admit of any 
building. My much respected friend, the present pos- 
sessor, was aware of this circumstance, and by art we 
have produced a situation which nature denied. The 
earth was lowered thirty feet perpendicularly, at the 
spot on which the house was built, and so disposed at 
the foot of the hill that no trace of artificial manage- 
ment is now to be discovered. 

Among the greatest examples of removing ground 
may be mentioned the work going on at Bulstrode, 
under the direction of His Grace the Duke of Portland 
himself; whose good taste will not suflfer any part of 
that beautiful park to be disguised bv the misjudging 



8o 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



taste of former times, and who, by opening the valleys 
and taking away a great depth of earth from the stems 
of the largest trees, which had been formerly buried, 
is, by degrees, restoring the surface of the ground to 
its original and natural shape. 

As connected with the subject of moving ground, 
I shall extract from my Red Book of Wentworth the 
following observations concerning the great work at 
that place which had so long been carrying on under 
the direction of the late Marquis of Rockingham. 

Of the view from the portico at Wentworth House 
[Figs. 7 and 8], my opinion is so contrary to that of 




Fig. 7. View fiom Wentworth House, betore it was improved, and while the im- 
provements were going forward. 

many others who have advised a farther removal of 
the hill that I hope it will not be improper to state 
very fully the reasons on which I ground this opinion, 
viz. that so 'far from such an operation being equi- 
valent to the trouble by which it must be executed, 
I would not advise its removal, if it could be much 
more easily effected, because — 

I. The outline of the horizon beyond this hill is 
almost a straight line, and would be very offensive 
when shewn over another straight line parallel to it. 

1. The view of the valley beyond, however rich in 
itself, is too motley to form a part of the proper 



Theory AND I^^ac;tick 8i 

landscape from such a palace as Wentworth House, 
although, from many situations in the park, it is a very- 
interesting feature. 

3. The vast plain, which has with so much difficulty 
been obtained in front of the house, is exactly propor- 
tionate to the extent of the edifice, and tends to impress 
the ideas of magnificence which so great a work of art 
is calculated to inspire. Such a plain forms an ample 
base for the noble structure which graces its extremity; 
the building and the plain are evidently made for each 
other, and, consequently, to increase the dimensions of 
either seems unnecessary. 

The foregoing reasons relate to the hill as considered 
from the house only ; I shall now consider it in other 
points of view. 

Wentworth Park consists of parts, in themselves 
truly great and magnificent. The woods, the lawns, 
the water, and the buildings are all separately striking; 
but, considered as a whole, there is a want of connex- 
ion and harmony in the composition, because parts, in 
themselves large, if disjoined, lose their importance. 
This, I am convinced, is the effect of too great an 
expanse of unclothed lawn, but when the young trees 
shall have thrown a mantle over this extensive knoll, 
all the distant parts will assume one general harmony, 
and the scattered masses of this splendid scenery will 
be connected and brought together into one vast and 
magnificent whole. 

The use of a plantation on this hill, in the approach 
from Rotherham, is evident, from the effect of a small 
clump which will form a part of this great mass, and 
which now hides the house, till, by the judicious bend 
round that angle, the whole building bursts at once 
upon the view. 



82 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

It can readily be conceived that before the old 
stables were removed there might appear some reason 
for not planting this hill ; not because it was too near 
the front, but because the view, thus bounded by a 
wood on one side, and the large pile of old stables on 
the other, would be too confined. That objection is 
removed with the stables, and now a wood on this hill 
will form a foreground, and lead the eye to each of 
those scenes, which are too wide apart ever to be con- 
sidered as one landscape. In the adjoining sketch [Fig. 
8] 1 have endeavoured to shew the effect of planting 




Fig. 8. V^icw from Wentworth House, shewing the effect intended to be produced 
by the proposed alterations. 



this hill, leaving part of the rock to break out among 
the trees. In a line of such extent, and where the angle 
nearest the house will be rather acute, it may be neces- 
sary to hide part and to soften off the corner of the 
plantation bv a few scattered single trees, in the manner 
I have attempted to represent. 

Among the future uses of the hill plantation, it may 
be mentioned that the shape which the ground most 
naturally seems to direct, for the outline of this wood, 
is such as will hereafter give opportunity to form the 
most interesting walk that imagination can suggest; 
because, from a large crescent of wood, on a knoll, the 



Theory and Practice 83 

views must be continually varying; while, by a judi- 
cious management of the small openings, and the pro- 
per direction of the walks, the scenery in the park will 
be shewn under different circumstances of foreground, 
with increased beauty. 



Chapter IT 



Ground iippiirrtttly altetrd H tin' Situation of the 
Spectator- — Reflections /rvm the Surface of floater 
explained and applied — Different Effects of Light 
on Different Ohiects 



1^111"" tioki of vision, or the portion ot laiulscape 
. w hich the eye will comprehcMui, is ;i circumstance 
frequently mistaken in fixing the situation for ;i house; 
since u view seen from the windows of an apartment will 
niateriallv differ from the same view seen in the open air. 
In one case, without moving the head, we see from sixty 
to ninetv degrees, or, by a single motion of the head, 
without moving the body, we mavseeevery object within 
one hundred and eighty degrees of vision. In the other 
case the portion of landscape will be much less, and 
must depend on the size ot the window, the thickness 
of the walls, and the distance of the spectator from the 
aperture. Hence it arises that persons are trequentlv 
disappointed, after building a house, to tind that those 
objects which they expected would form the leading 
features of their landscape are scarcely seen, except 
from such a situation in the room as mav be incon- 
venient to the spectator; or, otherwise, the object is 
shewn in an oblique and unfavourable point of view. 
This will be more clearly explained by the following 
diagram [Kig. g]. 

It is evident that a spectator at a can onlv see, through 
an aperture of four feet, those objects which fall within 



ThEORV AMU I'ltACnCE 



»i 



the opening b c, in one direction, and r> k in the other, 
neither rornprchcnding more than twenty or thirty de- 
green. Hut. if he rcrnovcH to a near the windows, he will 
then »iee all the objects, within the angle f r;, in one 
direction, or h i in the other; yet it is obvious that, even 
from tliesc «pot«, that part of the landscape which lies 




betwixt the extreme lines of vision f and h will be invis- 
ible, f>r at least seen with difficulty, by placing the eye 
mud) nearer to the window than is always convenient. 
From hence it follows that, to obtain so much of a 
view as may be expected,"' it is not sufficient to have 
a cross-light, or windows, in two sides of the room, at 
right angles with each other, but there must be one in 
an oblique direction, which can only be obtained by a 
bow-window: and although there may be some advant- 
age in making the different views from a house distinct 
landscapes, yet as the villa requires a more extensive 
prospect than a constant residence, so the bow-window 
is peculiarly applicable to the villa. I must acknow- 
ledge that its external appearance is not always orna- 
rnenfal, especially as it is often forced upon obscure 
buildings, where no view is presented, near great towns, 



86 l^HK Art ok Landscape Gardkning 

and ot'tcncr is placed like an uncouth excrescence upon 
the hleak ai\il cxposeil Kulging-liouses at a watering 
place; Init In (he large projecting wiiulows of oKl (lothic 
mansions, heaiitN and gramU-ui may In- united to utility. 

riu" api^nc-nt shapi- ot the giDuiul will lu- alteieil 
In (he situation ot the s|H-etator. This is a suhject of 
nujch importance to the laiulscape ganiener, although 
not generally studied. 

In hilly countries, where the hanks are hold, a wr.id 
in a valley is always pleasing, because it seems natural, 
and carries with it the iilea ot ease ami satetv ; hut in 
a country (hat is not hilly, we ought rather to shew the 
little'"' inequalities of groumi to advantage. 'I'he difVer- 
enee hetwixt viewing ground from the bottom of a val- 
ley ov the side of a hill will he best explaineil by the 
following diagram [big. lo], where the rules of per- 
spective again assist the scientific improver. 

I'he spectati>r at a, in looking vip the hill tow arils i', 
will lose all the groui\il that is toreshorteneil ; ami every 
t)bject which rises higher than fi\'e teet (/. ('. the height 
of his eye), will present itself alune his hori/on if the 
slope is exactly an uiclined plane or hanging level ; 
but as the shape o( ground here ilelineated more fre- 
quently occurs, he will actually see the sky, ami conse- 
quently the utmost pitch o( the hill beneath the body 
oi the animal placed at ii and part ot the thorn at c 
bec*.>me inx'isible. 

This accovuus tor the highest mouiuains U)sing their 
importance when seen only trom the base; while, ou 
the contrary, a plain or level surface (for instance the 
sea) appears to rise ciu\siderably when viewed from an 
eminence. I .etus suppose another spectator to be placeii 
at I); it is evident that this person will see no grovnui 



Theorv and Practice 87 

fon:«^hortened but that below him, while the opposite 
hill will appear to him far above the head of the man 
at A, and abfjve the cow at «. In the section, the dotted 
lines nr<: the respective horizons of the two spectators. 



and the sketches shew the landscape seen by each, in 
which the forked tree may serve as a scale to measure 

the lieif/ht of cacli iKjri/fjn. 

The reflections of objects in water are no less depend- 
ent on the laws of perspective, or of vision, than the 
instances already enumerated. 

If the water be raised to the level of the ground 
beyond it, we lose all advantage of reflection from the 
distant ground or trees: this is the case with pieces of 
water near the house in many places, for all ponds on 
high ground present a constant glare of light from the 
sky ; but the trees beyond can never be reflected on the 
surface, because the angle of incidence and the angle of 
reflection are always equal, and the surface of the water 
will always be a perfect horizontal plane. This I shall 
farther explain by the following lines [I'ig. ' 1]. 

The spectator at a, in looking on the upper water, 
will see only sky, because the angle of incident, b, and 
that of reflection, c, being equal, the latter passes over 
the top of the trees, o, on lower ground: but the same 



88 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



spectator, a, in looking on the lower water, will see the 
trees, e, reflected on its surface, because the line of reflec- 

A ■••••.: ., 



D ... 




Fig. II. 

tion passes through them, and not over them, as in the 
first instance. 

There are other circumstances belonging to reflection 
on the surface of water which deserve attention, and 
of which the landscape gardener should avail himself 
in the exercise of his art. Water in motion, whether 
agitated bv wind or by its natural current, produces 
little or no reflection; but in artificial rivers, the quiet 
surface doubles every object on its shores, and for this 



-A.*^.... 




C - 




Dr^ 



Fig. 



reason I have frequently found that the surface could 
be increased in appearance by sloping its banks: not 
only that which actually concealed part of the water 
but also the opposite bank; because it increased the 
quantity of sky reflected on the surface. 

Example. The spectator at a [Fig. 12] sees the sky 
reflected only from b to c, while the opposite bank is 




Morning Effect of Light 




Evening Effect of Light 

Plate VII, The Thames, from Purley 



Theory and Practice 89 

round ; but if sloped to the shaded line, less of the bank 
will be reflected in the water, and the quantity of sky 
seen in the water will be from b to d ; and as the bril- 
liancy of still water depends on the sky reflected on 
its surface, the quantity of water will be apparently 
increased. 

As properly belonging to this chapter may be men- 
tioned a curious observation which occurred in the view 
of the Thames from Purley. In the morning [see Plate 
vii], when the sun was in the east, the landscape ap- 
peared to consist of wood, water, and distant country, 
with few artificial accompaniments ; but in the evening, 
when the sun was in the west, objects presented them- 
selves which were in the morning scarcely visible. In the 
first instance the wood was in a solemn repose of shade ; 
the water, reflecting a clear sky, was so brilliantly illum- 
inated that I could trace the whole course of the river; 
the dark trees were strongly contrasted by the vivid 
green of the meadows, and the outline of distant hills 
was distinctly marked by the brightness of the atmo- 
sphere. I could scarcely distinguish any other objects; 
but these formed a pleasing landscape, from the breadth 
or contrast of light and shade. 

In the evening [Plate vii] the scene was changed; 
dark clouds reflected in the water rendered it almost 
invisible, the opposite hanging wood presented one 
glare of rich foliage, not so beautiful in the painter's 
eye as when the top of each tree was relieved by small 
catching lights : but the most prominent features were 
the buildings, the boat, the path, the pales, and even 
the distant town of Reading, now strongly gilded by the 
opposite sun. [Plate vii.] 

On comparing this efi^ect with others which I have 



90 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

frequently since observed, I draw this conclusion : that 
certain objects appear best with the sun behind them, 
and others with the sun full upon them ; and it is rather 
singular that to the former belong all natural objects, 
such as woods, trees, lawn, water, and distant mountains, 
while to the latter belong all artificial objects, such as 
houses, bridges, road^, boats, arable fields, and distant 
towns or villages. 

In the progress of this work I shall have occasion to 
call the reader's attention to the principles here assumed, 
and which, in certain situations, are of great importance 
and require to be well considered. 



Chapter III 



Water — Its General 'Treatment — Art must deceive 
to i?nitate Nature — Water at Wentworth described 
— A River easier to imitate than a Lake 



THE observations in the preceding chapter concern- 
ing the reflection of sky on the surface of water will 
account for that brilliant and cheerful effect produced 
by a small pool, frequently placed near a house, although 
in direct violation of nature : for since the ground ought 
to slope and generally does slope from a house, the 
water very near it must be on the side of a hill, and 
of course artificial. Although I have never proposed 
a piece of water to be made in such a situation, I have 
frequently advised that small pools so unnaturally placed 
should be retained, in compliance with that general 
satisfaction which the eye derives from the glitter of 
water, however absurd its situation. 

It requires a degree of refinement in taste bordering 
on fastidiousness to remove what is cheerful and pleas- 
ing to the eye, merely because it cannot be accounted 
for by the common laws of nature; I was, however, not 
sorry to discover some plea for my compliance, by con- 
sidering that although water on a hill is generally 
deemed unnatural, yet all rivers derive their sources 
from hills, and the highest mountains are known^o have 
lakes or pools of water near their summits. 

We object, therefore, not so much to the actual situa- 
tion as to the artificial management of such water. We 



92 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

long to break down the mound of earth by which the 
water is confined, although we might afterwards regret 
the loss of its cheerful glitter ; and hence, perhaps, arises 
that baldness in artificial pools, so disgusting to the 
painter and yet so pleasing to the less accurate observer. 
The latter delights in a broad expanse of light on the 
smooth surface, reflecting a brilliant sky ; the former 
expects to find that surface ruffled by the winds, or the 
glare of light in parts obscured by the reflection of trees 
from the banks of the water; and thus, while the painter 
requires a picture, the less scientific observer will be 
satisfied with a mirror. 

During a great part of last century West Wycombe 
was deemed a garden of such finished beauty that to 
those who formerly remembered the place it will seem 
absurd to suggest any improvement. But time will 
equally extend its changing influence to the works of 
nature and to those of art, since the planter has to con- 
tend with a power — 

*• A hidden power! at once his friend and foe! 
'T is Vegetation! Gradual to his groves 
She gives their wished effects, and that displayed, 
O ! that her power would pause ; but, active still. 
She swells each stem, prolongs each vagrant bough, 
And darts, with unremitting vigour bold. 
From grace to wild luxuriance." Mason. 

Thus, at West Wycombe, those trees and shrubs which 
were once its greatest ornament, have now so far outgrown 
their situation that the whole character of the place 
is altered ; and instead of that gaiety and cheerfulness 
inspired by flowering shrubs and young trees, gloom 
and melancholy seem to have reared their standard in the 
branches of the tallest elms and to shed their influence 
on every surrounding object : on the house, by lessen- 



Theory and Practice 



93 



ing its importance ; on the water, by darkening its sur- 
face; and on the lawn, by lengthened shadows. 

The prodigious height of the trees near the house 
has not merely affected the character, but also the very 
situation of the house. Instead of appearing to stand 
on a dry bank, considerably above the water (as it 
actually does), the house oppressed by the neighbouring 
trees became damp, and appeared to have been placed 
in a gloomy bottom, while the water was hardly visible, 
from the dark reflection of the trees on its surface, and 
the views of the distant hills were totally concealed from 
the house. 

It is a fortunate circumstance for the possessor, 
where improvement can be made rather by cutting 
down than by planting trees. The effect is instantly 
produced, and as the change in the scenery at this 
place has actually been realised before I could make a 
sketch to explain its necessity, the following drawing 
serves to record my reason for so boldly advising the 
use of the axe. I am well aware that my advice may 
subject me to the criticism of some, who will regret 
the loss of old trees, which, like old acquaintances, 
excite a degree of veneration, even when their age and 
infirmity have rendered them useless, perhaps offens- 
ive, to all but their youthful associates. The tedious 
process of rearing and planting woods and the dread- 
ful havoc too often made by injudiciously felling large 
trees ought certainly to inspire caution and diffidence ; 
but there is in reality no more temerity in marking 
the trees to be taken down than those to be planted, 
and I trust there has not been a single tree displaced 
at West Wycombe, which has not tended to improve 
the healthfulness, the magnificence, and the beauty of 
the place. 



94 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Most of the principal rooms having a north aspect, 
the landscape requires peculiar management not gener- 
ally understood. Lawn, wood, and water are always 
seen to the greatest advantage with the sun behind 
them, because the full glare of light between opposite 
trees destroys the contrast of wood and lawn ; while 
water never looks so brilliant and cheerful when reflect- 
ing the northern as the southern sky. A view, there- 
fore, to the north would be dull and uninteresting 
w^ithout some artificial objects, such as boats or build- 
ings, or distant corn-fields, to receive the opposite 
beams of the sun. A sketch shewed the effect of tak- 
ing down trees to admit the distant woods, and by 
removing those on the island, and of course their 
reflection, the water became more conspicuous ; in 
addition, the proposed road of approach, with car- 
riages occasionally passing near the banks of the lake, 
will give animation to the view> from the saloon. 

The views of West Wycombe, being taken from 
the proposed approach, I shall here beg leave to make 
a short digression, explaining my reasons for that line, 
founded on some general principles respecting an ap- 
proach, although it has no other reference to the water 
than as it justifies its course in passing the house to 
arrive at its object. 

If the display of magnificent or of picturesque 
scenery in a park be made without ostentation, it can 
be no more at variance with good taste than the display 
of superior affluence in the houses, the equipage, the 
furniture, or the habiliments of wealthy individuals. 
It will, therefore, I trust, sufficiently justify the line of 
approach here proposed, to say that it passes through 
the most interesting parts of the grounds, and will dis- 
play the scenery of the place to the greatest advantage, 



Theory and Practice 95 

without making any violent or unnecessary circuit to 
include objects that do not naturally come within its 
reach. This I deem to be a just and sufficient motive, 
and an allowable display of property without ostentation. 

The former approach to the house was on the south 
side of the valley, and objectionable for two reasons : 
1st, it ascended the hill, and, after passing around the 
whole of the buildings, it descended to the house, male- 
it appear to stand low ; 2d, by going along the side 
of the hill, little of the park was shewn, although the 
road actually passed through it, because, on an inclined 
plane, the ground which either rises on one side or 
falls on the other, becomes foreshortened and little 
observed, while the eye is directed to the opposite side 
of the valley, which in this instance consisted of enclos- 
ures beyond the park. On the contrary, the proposed 
new approach, being on the north side of the valley, 
will shew the park on the opposite bank to advantage, 
and, by ascending to the house, it will appear in its 
true and desirable situation upon a sufficient eminence 
above the water : yet, backed by still higher ground, 
richly clothed with wood, this view of the house will 
also serve to explain and, I hope, to justify the sacri- 
fice of those large trees which have been cut down 
upon the island, and whose dark shadows, being re- 
flected on the water, excluded all cheerfulness. 

The water at West Wycombe, from the brilliancy 
of its colour, the varieties of its shores, the difi^erent 
courses of its channel, and the number of its wooded 
islands, possessed a degree of pleasing intricacy which 
I have rarely seen in artificial pools or rivers ; there 
appears to be only one improvement necessary to give 
it all the variety of which it is capable. The glassy sur- 
face of a still, calm lake, however delightful, is not more 



g6 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

interesting than the lively brook rippling over a rocky 
bed, but when the latter is compared with a narrow 
stagnant creek, it must have a decided preference ; and 
as this advantage might easily be obtained in view of 
the house, I think it ought not to be neglected. 

It may perhaps be objected that to introduce rock 
scenery in this place would be unnatural ; but if this arti- 
fice be properly executed, no eye can discover the illu- 
sion, and it is only by such deceptions that art can 
imitate the most pleasing works of nature. By the help 
of such illusion we may see the interesting struggles of 
the babbling brook, which soon after 

— " spreads 
Into a liquid plain, then stands unmov'd, 
Pure as the expanse of heaven." 

This idea has been realised in the scenery at Adle- 
strop, where a small pool, very near the house, was sup- 
plied by a copious spring of clear water. The cheerful 
glitter of this little mirror, although on the top of the 
hill, gave pleasure to those who had never considered 
how much it lessened the place, by attracting the eye 
and preventing its range over the lawn and fallingground 
beyond. This pool has now been removed; a lively 
stream of water has been led through a flower-garden, 
where its progress down the hill is occasionally ob- 
structed by ledges of rocks, and after a variety of inter- 
esting circumstances it falls into a lake at a considerable 
distance, but in full view both of the mansion and the 
parsonage, to each of which it makes a delightful, be- 
cause a natural, feature in the landscape. 

Few persons have seen the formal cascade at Thoresby 
in front of the house and heard its solemn roar, without 
wishing to retain a feature which would be one of the 



Theory and Practice 97 

most interesting scenes in nature, if it could be divested 
of its disgusting and artificial formality; but this can 
only be effected by an equally violent, though less ap- 
parent, interference of art; because, without absolutely 
copying any particular scene in nature, we must en- 
deavour to imitate the causes by which she produces 
her effects, and the effects will be natural. 

The general cause of a natural lake or expanse of 
water is an obstruction to the current of a stream by 
some ledge or stratum of rock which it cannot penetrate ; 
but as soon as the water has risen to the surface of this 
rock, it tumbles over with great fury, wearing itself 
a channel among the craggy fragments, and generally 
forming an ample basin at its foot. Such is the scenery 
we must attempt to imitate at Thoresby. 

Having condemned the Ill-judged interference of art 
in the disposition of the ground and water at Thoresby, 
it may, perhaps, be objected, that I now recommend an 
artificial management not less extravagant, because I 
presume to introduce some appearance of rock scenery 
in a soil where no rock naturally exists; but the same 
objection might be made with equal propriety to the in- 
troduction of an artificial lake in a scene where no lake 
before existed. When under the guidance of Le Notre 
and his disciples, the taste for geometric gardening pre- 
vailed, nature was totally banished or concealed by the 
works of art. Now, in defining the shape of land or 
water, we take nature for our model; and the highest 
perfection of landscape gardening is to imitate nature 
so judiciously that the interference of art shall never 
be detected. 

A rapid stream, violently agitated, is one of the most 
interesting objects in nature. Yet this can seldom be 
enjoyed except in a rocky country; since the more im- 



98 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

petuous the stream, the sooner will it be buried within its 
banks, unless they are of such materials as can resist its 
fury. To imitate this natural effect, therefore, in a soil 
like that of Thoresby, we must either force the stream 
above its level and deprive it of natural motion, or in- 
troduce a foundation of stones disposed in such a man- 
ner as to appear the rocky channel of the mountain 
stream. The former has been already done in forming 
the lake, and the latter has been attempted, according 
to the fashion of geometric gardening, in the regular 
cascade, where a great body of water was led under- 
ground from the lake to move downstairs, into a scal- 
loped basin, between two bridges immediately in front 
of the house. 

The violence done to nature by the introduction of 
rock scenery at Thoresby is the more allowable, since 
it is within a short distance of Derbyshire, the most 
romantic county in England ; while, from the awful 
and picturesque scenery of Creswell Crags, such strata 
and ledges of stone, covered with their natural vegeta- 
tion, may be transported thither, that no eye can 
discover the fraud. 

It is scarcely possible for any admirer of nature to 
be more enthusiastically fond of her romantic scenery 
than myself; but her wildest features are seldom within 
the common range of man's habitation. The rugged 
paths of alpine regions will not be daily trodden by the 
foot of affluence, nor will the thundering cataracts of 
Niagara seduce the votaries of pleasure frequently to 
visit their wonders ; it is only by a pleasing illusion that 
we can avail ourselves of those means which nature 
herself furnishes, even in tame scenery, to imitate her 
bolder effects ; and to this illusion, if well conducted, 
the eye of genuine taste will not refuse its assent. 



Theory and Practice 99 

"La Nature fuit les lieux frequentes ; c'est au som- 
met des montagnes, au fond des forets, dans les isles 
desertes, qu'elle etale ses charmes les plus touchants ; 
ceux qui I'aiment et ne peuvent Taller chercher si loin, 
sont reduits a lui faire violence, et a la forcer en quelque 
sorte a venir habiter parmi eux, et tout cela ne peut se 
faire sans un peu d'illusion." — J. J. Rousseau. 

[Nature flies from frequented places ; it is on the 
summit of mountains, in the depths of forests, and in 
desert islands that she displays her most affecting 
'charms ; those who love her, and who cannot go so far 
in search of her, are reduced to the necessity of con- 
straining her, and forcing her to take up her habitation 
among them ; but this cannot be done without a certain 
degree of illusion.] 

One of the views from the house at Thoresby looked 
towards 

*' the long line 
Deep delv'd of flat canal, and all that toil. 
Misled by tasteless fashion, could achieve. 
To mar fair Nature's lineaments divine." Mason. 

As, in this instance, I shall have occasion to propose 
a different idea to that suggested by Mr. Brown, I must 
beg leave to explain the reasons on which I ground my 
opinion. 

Amidst the numerous proofs of taste and judgement 
which that celebrated landscape gardener has left for 
our admiration, he frequently mistook the character 
of running water ; he was too apt to check its pro- 
gress, by converting a lively river into a stagnant 
pool, nay, he even dared to check the progress of 
the furious Derwent at Chatsworth, and transform 
it into a tame and sleepy river unworthy the majesty 



lOO The Art of Landscape Gardening 

of that palace of the mountains. Such was his inten- 
tion with respect to the stream of water which flows 
through Thoresby Park ; but since the lake presents 
a magnificent expanse of water, the river below the 
cascade should be restored to its natural character : 
a rivulet in motion. 

At Wentworth, although the quantity of water is 
very considerable, yet it is so disposed as to be little 
seen from the present approach, and when it is crossed 
in the drive on the head between two pools, the arti- 
ficial management destroys much of its effect: they 
appear to be several distinct ponds, and not the series 
of lakes which nature produces in a mountainous coun- 
try. But the character of this water should rather 
imitate one large river than several small lakes; espe- 
cially as it is much easier to produce the appearance of 
continuity than of such vast expanse as a lake requires. 
The following sketch [Plate ix] is a view of the 
scenery presenting itself under the branches of trees, 
which act as a frame to the landscape. 

To preserve the idea of a river, nothing is so effect- 
ual as a bridge; instead of dividing the water on each 
side, it always tends to lengthen its continuity by shew- 
ing the impossibility of crossing it by any other means, 
provided the ends are well concealed, which is fortun- 
ately the case with respect to this water. Although the 
upper side of the bridge would be very little seen, 
because the banks are everywhere planted, yet, as the 
bridge would not be more than fifty yards long, it would 
be more in character with the greatness of the place to 
have such a bridge as would nowhere appear a decep- 
tion, and in this case the different levels of the water 
(being only five feet) would never be discovered. 



Theory and Practice ioi 

The rippling motion of water is a circumstance to 
which improvers have seldom paid sufficient attention. 
They generally aim at a broad expanse and depth, not 
considering that a narrow shallow brook in motion over 
a gravelly bottom is not less an object of beauty and 
worthy of imitation ; the deep dell betwixt the boat- 
house and the bridge might be rendered very interesting 
by bringing a lively brook along the valley; the em- 
bouchure of this brook should be laid with gravel, to 
induce cattle to form themselves in groups at the edge 
of the water, which is one of the most pleasing circum- 
stances of natural landscape. It sometimes happens, 
near large rivers, that a clear spring bubbles from a 
fountain, and pours its waters rapidly into the neigh- 
bouring stream ; this is always considered a delightful 
object in nature, yet I do not recollect it has ever been 
imitated by art. It would be very easy to produce it in 
this instance by leading water in a channel from the 
upper pool, and after passing underground by tubes 
for a few yards, let it suddenly burst through a bed of 
sand and stones, and being thus filtered by ascent, it 
would ripple along the valley till it joined the great 
water. Milton was aware of this contrast betwixt the 
river and the rill, where he mentions, amongst the 
scenery of his Allegro, 

" Shallow brooks and rivers wide." 

Where two pieces of water are at some distance 
from each other, and of such different levels that they 
cannot easily be made to unite in one sheet, if there 
be a sufficient supply to furnish a continual stream, or 
only an occasional redundance in winter, the most 
picturesque mode of uniting the two is by imitating 
a common process of nature in mountainous countries, 



I02 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

where we often see the water, in its progress from one 
lake to another, dashing among broken fragments or 
gently gliding over ledges of rock which form the 
bottom of the channel. This may be accomplished at 
Harewood, where the rriost beautiful stone is easily 
procured, but in disposing the ledges of rock, they 
should not be laid horizontally, but with the same 
slanting inclination that is observed, more or less, in the 
bed of the neighbouring river. 



Chapter IV 



Planting — Immediate and Future Effect — Clumps 
— Groups — Masses — The Browsing-Line de- 
scribed — Combination of Masses to produce Great 
Woods — Character and Shape of Ground to be 
studied — Outline of New Plantations 



THE following observations on planting are not 
intended to pursue the minute detail so copiously 
and scientifically described in Evelyn's " Sylva," and 
so frequently quoted, or rather repeated from him, 
in modern publications; I shall merely consider it as 
a relative subject : and being one of the chief ornaments 
in landscape gardening when skilfully appropriated, I 
shall divide it into two distinct heads : the first includ- 
ing those single trees or groups which may be planted 
of a larger size to produce present eflfect ; the second 
comprehending those masses of plantations destined to 
become woods or groves for future generations. 

Since few of the practical followers of Mr. Brown 
possessed that force of genius which rendered him, 
according to Mason, 

** the living leader of thy powers. 
Great Nature," 

it is no wonder that they should have occasionally copied 
the means he used, without considering the effect which 
he intended to produce. Thus Brown has been treated 
with ridicule by the contemptuous observation that all 
his improvements consisted in belting, clumping, and 



I04 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

dotting. But I conceive the two latter ought rather to 
be considered as cause and effect than as two distinct 
ideas of improvement, for the disagreeable and artificial 
appearance of young trees, when protected by what is 
called a cradle fence, together with the difficulty of making 
them grow thus exposed to the wind, induced Mr. 
Brown to form small clumps fenced round, containing 
a number of trees calculated to shelter each other and 
to promote the growth of those few which might be 
ultimately destined to remain and form a group. This 
I apprehend was the origin and intention of those 
clumps, and that they never were designed as ornaments 
in themselves, but as the most efficacious and least dis- 
gusting manner of producing single trees and groups to 
vary the surface of a lawn, and break its uniformity by 
light and shadow. 

In some situations, where great masses of wood and 
a large expanse of open lawn prevail, the contrast is too 
violent, and the mind becomes dissatisfied by the want 
of unity. We are never well pleased with a composition 
in natural landscape, unless the wood and lawn are so 
blended that the eye cannot trace the precise limits of 
either, yet it is necessary that each should preserve its 
original character in broad masses of light and shadow; 
for although a large wood may be occasionally relieved 
by clearing small openings to break the heaviness of 
the mass, or vary the formality of its outline, yet the 
general character of shade must not be destroyed. 

In like manner the too great expanse of light on 
a lawn must be broken and diversified by occasional 
shadow, but if too many trees be introduced for this 
purpose, the effect becomes frittered, and the eye is 
offended by a deficiency of composition, or, as the 
painter would express it, of a due breadth of light and 



Theory and Practice 105 

shade. Now it is obvious that, in newly formed places, 
such a redundance of trees will generally remain from 
former hedge-rows that there can seldom be occasion 
to increase the number of single trees, though it will 
often be advisable to combine them into proper groups. 
It is a mistaken idea, scarcely worthy of notice, that 
the beauty of a group of trees consists in odd numbers, 
such as five, seven, or nine; a conceit which I have 
known to be seriously asserted. I should rather pro- 
nounce that no group of trees can be natural in which 
the plants are studiously placed at equal distances, how- 




Fig. 13. Artificial Scenery. 



ever irregular in their forms. Those pleasing combina- 
tions of trees which we admire in forest scenery will often 
be found to consist of forked trees, or at least of trees 
placed so near each other that the branches intermix, 
and by a natural effort of vegetation the stems of the 
trees themselves are forced from thatperpendicular direc- 
tion which is always observable in trees planted at regular 
distances from each other. No groups will therefore 
appear natural unless two or more trees are planted very 
near each other,^' whilst the perfection of a group consists 



io6 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



in the combination of trees of different age, size, and 
character. 

The two sketches annexed exemplify this remark ; 
the first [Fig. 13] represents a few young trees protected 




Fig. 14. Natu 



by cradles, and though some of them appear nearer to- 
gether than others, it arises from their being seen in per- 
spective, for 1 suppose them to be planted (as they usually 
are) at nearly equal distances. In the same landscape I 
have supposed the same trees grown to a considerable 
size, but from their equi-distance the stems are all parallel 
to each other, and not like the group in Fig. 14, where 
being planted much nearer, the trees naturally recede 
from each other. A few low bushes or thorns produce 
the kind of group in the second sketch [Fig. 14], con- 
sisting of trees and bushes of various growth. It may be 
observed that the single tree, and every part of the first 
sketch, is evidently artificial, and that the second one is 
natural, and like the groups in a forest. 

Another source of variety may be produced by such 
opaque masses of spinous plants as protect themselves 
from cattle ; thus stems of trees seen against lawn or water 



Theory and Practice 107 

are comparatively dark, while those contrasted with a back- 
ground of wood appear light. This difference is shewn 
in both these sketches : the stems of the trees a a appear 
light, and those 2iX. b b are dark, merely from the power 
of contrast, although both are exposed to the same de- 
gree of light. 

Where a large tract of waste heath or common is near 
the boundary of a park, if it cannot be enclosed, it is 
usual to dot certain small patches of trees upon it, with 
, an idea of improvement ; a few clumps of miserable Scotch 
firs, surrounded by a mud wall, are scattered over a great 
plain, which the modern improver calls " clumping the 
common." It is thus that Hounslow Heath has been 
clumped ; and even the vast range of country formerly 
the Forest of Sherwood has submitted to this meagre 
kind of misnamed ornament. 

It may appear unaccountable that these examples, 
which have not the least beauty either of nature or art 
to recommend them, should be so generally followed ; 
but alteration is frequently mistaken for improvement, 
and two or three clumps of trees, however bad in them- 
selves, will change the plain surface of a flat common. 
This I suppose has been the cause of planting some 
spruce firs on Maiden Early Common, which fortunately 
do not grow; for if they succeeded, the contrast is so 
violent between the wild surface of a heathand the spruce 
appearance of firs that they would be misplaced : besides, 
the spiral firs are seldom beautiful, except when their 
lower branches sweep upon the ground, and this could 
never be the case with those exposed to cattle on a 
common. 

A far better method of planting waste land, where en- 
closures are not permitted, has been adopted with great 
success in Norfolk, by my much valued friend the late 



io8 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Robert Marsham, Esq., of Stratton. Instead of firs sur- 
rounded by a mud bank, he placed deciduous trees of 
every kind, but especially birch, intermixed with thorns, 
crabs, and old hollies, cutting off their heads and all their 
branches about eight feet from the ground : these are 
planted in a puddle and the earth laid round their roots 
in small hillocks, which prevent the cattle from standing 
very near to rub them ; and thus I have seen groups of 
trees which looked like bare poles the first year, in a 
very short time become beautiful ornaments to a dreary 
waste. 

Mr. Gilpin, in his " Forest Scenery," has given some 
specimens of the outlines of a wood, one of which is not 
unlike that beautiful screen which bounds the park to the 
north of Milton Abbey, and which the first of the an- 
nexed sketches [Plate xi] more accurately represents. 
We have here a very pleasing and varied line formed 
by the tops of trees, but, from the distance at which 
they are viewed, they seem to stand on one straight 
base-line, although many of the trees are separated from 
the others by a considerable distance: the upper out- 
line of this screen is so happily varied that the eye is 
not offended bv the straight line at its base. But there 
is another line which is apt to create disgust in flat situ- 
ations, and for this reason — all trees unprotected from 
cattle will be stripped of their foliage to a certain 
height, and where the surface of the ground is perfectly 
flat and forms one straight line, the stems of trees thus 
brought to view by the browsing of cattle will present 
another straight line parallel to the ground, at about six 
feet high, which I shall call the browsing-line. 

Whether trees be planted near the eye or at a distance 
from it, and whether they be very young plants or of the 




X 



Theory and Practice 109 

greatest stature, this browsing-line will always be par- 
allel to the surface of the ground, and being just above 
the eye, if the heads of single trees do not rise above the 
outline of more distant woods, the stems will appear only 
like stakes of different sizes scattered about the plain ; 
this is evidently the effect of those single thorns or trees 
in the sketch [Plate xi] marked «, ^, c. 

In the sketches [Plate xi] I have represented a view 
of that long screen at Milton Abbey which shuts out 
jCastor field, and which is certainly not a pleasing feat- 
ure, from its presenting not only a straight line at the 
bottom, but the trees being all of the same age, the top 
outline is alsostraight. Thisscreen formsthe background 
of a view taken from the approach, and represents the 
difference between an attempt to break the uniformity of 
the plain by open or by close plantations. 

'ihe trees of this screen are of such a height that we 
can hardly expect, in the life of man, to break the upper 
outline by any young trees, except they are planted very 
near the eye, as at e, because those planted at/" or ^ [in 
the same figure] will, bv the laws of perspective, sink 
beneath the outline of the screen ; it is therefore not in 
our power to vary the upper line, and if the plantations 
be open the browsing-line will make a disagreeable par- 
allel with the even surface of the ground ; this can only 
be remedied by preventing cattle from browsing the 
underwood, which should always be encouraged in such 
situations ; thus, although we cannot vary the upper 
line of this screen, we may give such variety to its 
base as will, in sonle measure, counteract the flatness of 
its appearance. 

The browsing-line being always at nearly the same 
distance of about six feet from the ground, it acts as 
a scale by which the eye measures the comparative height 



I lO 



Till'. Akv oi' I ,.\Ni>si\\rK (iaki)i:nin(; 



oF trees at any ilistunce ; for this reason the importance 
ot a hirgo twc luav Ih' injurcil hy cutting the lower 
hrai\ehes aht)\e this usual staiulard. It is obvious that 
the toregoing trees [see Pig. 15] are of dillerent ages, 




characters, and heights, yet the hrowsing-hne is the sanie 
in all, and furnishes a natural scale by which we at once 
decide on their relative iieights at various distances. 

Let us suppose the same trees pruned or trimmed by 
man [as in Kig. 16], and not by cattle, and this scale will 
be destroyed : thus, a full grown oak may be made to 
look like an orchard-tree, or by encouraging the under 
branches to grow lower than the usual standard, a thorn 




Kij;. 16. 

ov a crab-tree may be mistaken for an oak, at a dis- 
tance. 

Single trees, or open groups, areobjects of great beauty 
when scattered on the side of a steep hill, because they 
may be made to mark the degree of its declivity, and 
the siuulows of the trees are very conspicuous; but on 



Theory and Practice i i i 

a plain the shadows are little seen, and therefore single 
trees are of less use. 

1 am now to speak of plantations for future, rather 
than for immediate effect, and instead of mentioning 
large tracts of land which have been planted under my 
directions, where a naked or a barren country has been 
clothed without difficulty or contrivance, I shall rather 
instance a subject requiring peculiar management, es- 
. pecially as, from its vicinity to a highroad, I cannot 
perhaps produce a better example than the following 
extract furnishes : 

Coombe Lodge, seen from the turnpike road, does not 
at present give a favourable impression ; for though the 
view from the house, consisting of the opposite banks 
of Basildon, is richly wooded, the place itself is naked ; 
and it is difficult to remove this objection without sac- 
rificing more land to the purposes of beauty than would 
be advisable or even justifiable. Both the situation and 
the outline of the house at Coombe Lodge have been 
determined with judgement: the situation derives great 
advantage from its southern aspect and from the views 
which it commands ; and the house derives importance 
from its extended front. Both these circumstances, how- 
ever, contribute to the bad opinion conceived of the place 
when viewed from the road, which is the point from 
whence its defects are most apparent. 

The fronttowards the road faces the south, and is there- 
fore lighted by thesun during thegreatest part of the day ; 
but being backed by lawn and arable land, and not re- 
lieved by wood, the effect of sunshine is equally strong 
on the background as on the house, because there is not 
asufficient opposition of colour to separate these different 
objects; but if, on the contrary, the house be opposed to 



iia TuK Art of I^andscapk Gardkning 



\\H)i>J,it Will the- 11 .ippiMi lii'Ju iiiul I'onspu-uous, t lu-attrti- 
tiDii UciMg principally liirectcil ti) tiic mansion, while thi- 
other parts ot the sctMic will be duly suhordinatr. 

It is also proper that the irroumls shoiiKi aceonl with 
the si/e aiul style ot the phue, ai\il that the mansion he 
surrounded by its appropriate ajipenilages. At present 
the character of the house and that ot the place are at 
variance : the latter is that of a farm, hut the character 
o{ the house is that ot" a geiuleman's resilience, whicjj 
should he surroundeil b\ pleasure-grounds, wooii ami 
lawn ; and although great credit is duo to those gentle- 
men wlu) patronise farming In' their example as well as 
hv their intluence, it wouKl he a reflection on the gooil 
taste of the country to suppose that the habitation of the 
gentleman ought not to be distinguished from that of 
the farmer, as well in the character of the place as by the 
si/e ot the lu)use. 

1 shall not on this occasion enter into ailiscussion of 
the ditVerence between a scene in nature and a landscape 
on the painter's canvas ; nor consider the \ cry ililferent 
means In' which the jiainter and the laiuiscajH- garilener 
produce the same effect : 1 shall merely endeavovn- to shew 
how far the same principles would direct the professors 
of either art in the improvemeiu of Coombe I -odge, and 
more particularly in the form and character oi the wood 
to the nortli of the house. 

Breailth, which is one ot the first jirincijiles ot paint- 
ing, would promjU the necessity of jtlanting the whole 
of the hill behii\d the luuise; but the improver, who em- 
bellishes the scene for the pmposesof general utility and 
real life, must adopt what is convenient as well as beauti- 
ful. The painter, when he studies the perfection of his 
art, forms a correct picture and takes beauty for liis guide. 
The improver consults the genius of the scene and con- 



TfjKORY AND Practice i 13 

nects beauty with those useful supporters, economy and 
convenience ; and as Coombe Lodge would not be re- 
lieved by one large wood without a great sacrifice of land, 
the effect must be produced by planting a part only, 
whilst the judgement must be influenced by two princi- 
ples belonging to the sister art, breadth and intricacy. 

Breadth directs the necessity of large masses or con- 
tinued lines of plantation, whilst intricacy suggests the 
shape and direction of the glades of lawn, and teaches 
Jiow to place loose groups of trees and separate masses 
of brushwood, where the outline might otherwise appear 
hard ; and by occasional interruptions to the flowing lines 
of grass, with suitable recesses and projections of wood, 
intricacy contrives to " lead the eye a wanton chase," 
producing variety without fritter, and continuity without 
sameness. 

There is another principle to guide the improver in 
planting the hill in question, which may be derived from 
the art of painting and belongs to perspective. It is evi- 
dent that if the whole bank were planted its efl^ect would 
be good from every point of view: it is no less evident 
that where it is necessary to regard economy in planting, 
and, as in the present instance, to produce the effect of 
clothing by several lines of wood, instead of one great 
mass, that effect from some points of sight may be good, 
from some indifferent, and from others bad; it is there- 
fore necessary to consider how those lines of plantaHon 
which produce a good effect from the house will appear 
in perspective from different heights and from different 
situations, and this question has been determined by 
various circumstances of the place itself. 

This subject was elucidated by as many drawings as 
there were stations described ; but as most of them were 
taken from the public road between Reading and Wal- 



114 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

lingford, the efFect of these phmtations will be seen from 
thence ; and I have availed myself, as much as possible, 
of thoseexaniplos which, from their proximitv to a public 
road, are most likely to be generally observed. 

If the more common appearances in nature were objects 
of ourimitation we should certainly plant the valleys and 
not the hills, since nature generally adopts this rule in 
her spontaneous plantations ; but it is " la belle nature," 
or those occasional effects of extraordinary beauty, which 
nature furnishes as models to the landscape gardener. 
And although a wood on the summit of a bleak, hill may 
not be soprorttable,or growso fast, as one in the sheltered 
valley, yet its advantages will be strongly felt on the 
surrounding soil. The verdure will be improved when 
defended trom winds and fertilised by the successive tall 
of leaves, whilst the cattle will more readily frequent the 
hills when they are sheltered and protected by sufficient 
screens of plantations.'^ 

In recommending that the hills should be planted, 
I do not mean that the summits should be covered by 
a patch or clump ; the woods of the valleys should, on 
the contrary, seem to climb the hills by such connecting 
lines as may neither appear meagre nor artificial, but, 
following the natural shapes of the ground, produce 
an apparent continuity of wood falling down the hills in 
various directions. 

•' Rich the robe. 
And ample let it flow, that Nature wears 
On her thron'd eminence ! where'er she takes 
Her horizontal march, pursue her step 
With sweeping train of forest ; hill to hill 
Unite with prodigality of shade." 

Mason. 

During the first few vears of large plantations in 
a naked country, the outline, however graceful, will ap- 



Theorv ako Practice 115 

pear hard and artificial; but when the trees begin to 
require thinning, a few single trees or groups may be 
brought forward. The precise period at which this may 
be advisable must depend on the nature of the soil : but 
so rich is the ground in which plantations were made at 
Aston, about ten years since, that this management has 
already been adopted with effect. 

Although it will again be repeated in the chapter 
treating of fences, I must observe in this place that, 
instead of protecting large plantations with hedges and 
ditches, I have generally recommended a temporary 
fence of posts and rails, or hurdles on the outside, and 
either advise a hedge of thorns to be planted at eight 
or ten yards distance from the outline, or rather that 
the whole [)lantation be so filled with thorns and spinous 
plants that the cattle may not penetrate far when the 
temporary fences shall be removed, and thus may be 
formed that beautiful and irregular outline so much 
admired in the woods and thickets of a forest. 



Chapter V 



Woods — Intricacy — Variety — yi Belt — On 
thinning Woods — Leaving Groups — Opening a 
Lawn in Great Woods 



OBSERVATIONS on Modern Gardening," by 
the late Mr. Whateley, contain some remarks pe- 
culiarly applicable to the improvement of woods, and so 
clearly expressive of my own sentiments that I beg to 
introduce the ample quotation inserted in the note,** 
especially as the annexed drawings [Plate xii] convey 
specimens of these rules, which require but little further 
elucidation. 

The beech woods in Buckinghamshire derive more 
beauty from the unequal and varied surface of the ground 
on which they are planted than from the surface of the 
woods themselves ; because they have generally more 
the appearance of copses than of woods : and as few 
of the trees are suffered to arrive to great size, there 
is a deficiency of that venerable dignity which a grove 
always ought to possess. 

These woods are evidentlyconsidered ratheras objects 
of profit than of picturesque beauty ; and it is a circum- 
stance to be regretted that pecuniary adj/antage and 
ornament are seldom strictly compatible with each other. 
The underwood cannot be protected from cattle without 
fences, and if the fence be a live hedge the trees lose half 
their beauty, while they appear confined within the un- 
sightly boundary. To remedy this defect, the quick-fence 
at Shardeloes has, in many places, been removed, and 



Theory anu Practice 117 

a rail placed at a little distance within the wood ; but the 
distance is so small that the original outline is nearly as 
distinct as if the fence were still visible, and the regular 
undulations of those lines give an artificial appearance to 
the whole scenery. 

A painter's landscape depends upon his management 
of light and shade : if these be too smoothly blended with 
each other, the picture wants force ; if too violently con- 
trasted, it is called hard. The light and shade of natural 
Undscape require no less to be studied than that of paint- 
ing. The shade of a landscape gardener is wood, and his 
lights proceed either from a lawn, from water, or from 
buildings. If on the lawn too many single trees be scat- 
tered, the effect becomes frittered, broken, and diffuse ; 
on the contrary, if the general surface of the lawn be 
too naked, and the outline of the woods form a uniform 
heavy boundary between the lawn and the horizon, 
the eye of taste will discover an unpleasing harshness 
in the composition which no degree of beauty, either in 
the shape of the ground or in the outline of the woods, 
can entirely counteract. In this state the natural land- 
scape, like an unfinished picture, will appear to want the 
last touches of the master ; this would be remedied on 
the canvas, in proportion as the picture became more 
highly finished ; but on the ground it can only be ef- 
fected by taking away many trees in thefront of the wood, 
leaving some few individually and more distinctly sepa- 
rated from the rest : this will give the finishing touches 
to the outline, where no other defect is apparent. 

The eye, or rather the mind, is never long delighted 
with that which it surveys without effort at a single glance, 
and therefore sees without exciting curiosity or interest. 
It is not the vast extent of lawn, the great expanse of 
water, or the long range of wood that yields satisfaction ; 



I I 8 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

for these, if shapeless, or, which is the same thing, if their 
exact shape, however large, be too apparent, only attract 
our notice by the space they occupy, " to fill that space 
with objects of beauty, to delight the eye after it has been 
struck, to fix the attention where it has been caught, to 
prolong astonishment into admiration, are purposes not 
unworthy of the greatest designs." 

This can only be effected by intricacy, the due me- 
dium between uniformity on the one hand and confusion 
on the other ; which is produced by throwing obstacles 
in the way to amuse the eye and to retard that celerity 
of vision, so natural where no impediments occur to 
break the uniformity of objects. Yet while the hasty 
progress of the eye is checked, it ought not to be ar- 
rested too abruptly. The mind requires a continuity, 
though not a sameness ; and while it is pleased with 
succession and variety, it is offended by sudden contrast, 
which destroys the unity of composition. 

There is a small clump at b [Plate xii], which is of 
great use in breaking the outline of the wood beyond 
it ; and there is a dell or scar in the ground at c that 
may also be planted for the like purpose. It is a very 
common expedient to mend an outline by adding new 
plantation in the front of an old one ; but although the 
improver may plant large woods with a view to future 
ages, yet something appears due to the present day. If 
by cutting down a few trees in the front of a large wood 
the shape of its outline may immediately be improved 
in a better manner than can be expected from a solitary 
clump a century hence, it is surely a more rational sys- 
tem of improvement than so long to endure a patch, 
surrounded by an unsightly fence, in the distant hope of 
effects which the life of man is too short to realise. 

There is a part of the wood at d so narrow as to admit 



Theory AND Practice 119 

the light between the stems of the trees ; this naturally 
suggests the idea of adding new plantation. But the 
horizon is already uniformly bounded by wood, and 
the mind is apt to affix the idea of such boundary 
being the limit of the park as strongly as if the pale 
itself were visible; on the contrary, the ground falling 
beyond this part and a range of wood sweeping over the 
brow of the hill, it is better to clear away some of the 
trees, to increase the apparent extent of lawn. Instead 
of destroying the continuity of wood, this will increase 
its quantity ; because the tops of the trees being partly 
seen over the opening, the imagination will extend the 
lawn beyond its actual boundary, and represent it as 
surrounded by the same chain of woods. 

I have often heard it asserted, as a general maxim in 
gardeningjthathillsshould be planted and valleys cleared 
of wood. This idea perhaps originated and ought only 
to be implicitly followed in a flat or tame country, where 
the hills are so low as to require greater height by planting, 
and the valleys so shallow that trees would hide the neigh- 
bouring hills : but whenever the hills are sufficiently bold 
to admit of ground being seen between large trees in 
the valley and those on the brow of the hill, it marks so 
decided a degree of elevation that it ought sedulously to 
be preserved. Instead, therefore, of removing the trees 
in the valley, at e, I should prefer shewing more of the 
lawn above them by clearing away some of the wood on 
the knoll at f, which I have distinguished by the pavilion 
shewn in Plate xii: such a building would have many 
uses, besides acting as an ornament to the scenery, which 
seems to require some artificial objects to appropriate 
the woods to the magnificence of place ; because wood 
and lawn may be considered as the natural features of 
Buckinghamshire. 



I20 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

The Red Book of Shardeloes contains a minute de- 
scription of the rides made in the woods, with the reasons 
for every part of their course ; but as this subject is more 
amply treated in my remarks on Bulstrode, the following 
extract is accompanied with a map, on which the course 
of an extensive drive is minutely described. This park 
must be acknowledged one of the most beautiful in Eng- 
land, yet 1 doubt whether Claude himself could find, in 
its whole extent, a single station from whence a picture 
could be formed. I mention this as a proof of the little 
affinity between pictures and scenes in nature. 

It is not uncommon to conduct a drive either round 
a park or into the adjoining woods, without any other 
consideration than its length ; and I have frequentlv been 
carried through a belt of plantation, surrounding a place, 
without one remarkable object to call the attention from 
the trees, which are everywhere mixed in the same 
unvaried manner. 

Although the verdure, the smoothness of the surface, 
and nature of the soil at Bulstrode are such as to make 
every part of the park pleasant to drive over, yet there 
is a propriety in marking certain lines of communication 
which may lead from one interesting spot to another; 
and though a road of approach to a house ought not to 
be circuitous, the drive is necessarily so ; yet this should 
be under some restraint. By the assistance of the map 
[Plate xiii], I shall describe in a note the course of 
the drive at Bulstrode ; and however devious it may 
appear on paper, it will, I trust, be found to possess such 
a variety as few drives can boast, and that no part of it 
is suggested without sufficient reasons for its course. 

I would not here be understood to infer that every 
park can boast those advantages which Bulstrode pos- 
sesses, or that every place offers sufficient extent and 








Ihi-t ytlP ''f Bt'LSTRODR 



Plate XIII. Map of Bulstrode 



Theory and Practice 121 

variety for such a drive appropriated to pleasure only ; 
but this is introduced as an archetype or example, from 
whence certain principles are reduced to practice. Some 
of my observations, in the course of this description, may 
appear to have been anticipated by Mr. Whateley, and 
if I may occasionally deliver them as my own sentiments, 
I hope the coincidence in opinion with so respectable 
a theorist will not subject me to the imputation of 
plagiarism. ^^ 

Heathfield Park is one of those subjects from whence 
my art can derive little credit : the world is too apt to 
mistake alteration for improvement, and to applaud 
every change, although no higher beauty is produced. 
The character of this park is strictly in harmony with 
its situation ; both are splendid and magnificent; yet a 
degree of elegance and beauty prevails, which is rarely to 
be found where greatness of character and loftiness of 
situation are predominant, because magnificence is not 
always united with convenience, nor extent of prospects 
with interesting and beautiful scenery. The power of 
art can have but little influence in increasing the natural 
advantages of Heathfield Park. It is the duty of the 
improver to avail himself of those beauties which nature 
has profusely scattered, and by leading the stranger to 
the most pleasing stations, to call his attention to those 
objects which, from their variety, novelty, contrast, or 
combination, are most likely to interest and delight the 
mind. On this foundation ought to be built the future 
improvement of Heathfield Park; notby doing violence 
to its native genius, but by sedulously studying its true 
character and situation : certain roads, walks, or drives 
may collect the scattered beauties of the place, and con- 
nect them with each other in lines, easy, natural, and 
graceful. 



122 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

A common error, by which modern improvers are apt 
to be misled, arises from the mistake so often made by 
adopting extent for beauty. Thus the longest circuit is 
frequently preferred to that which is most interesting ; 
not indeed by the visitors, but by the fancied improver 
of a place. This, I apprehend, was the origin, and is 
always the tedious effect, of what is called a Belt ; through 
which the stranger is conducted, that he may enjoy the 
drive, not by any striking points of view or variety of 
scenery, but by the number of miles over which he has 
traced its course, and instead of leading to those objects 
which are most worthy our attention, it is too common 
to find the drive a mere track round the utmost verge 
of the park ; and if any pleasing features excite our 
notice, they arise rather from chance than design. 

To avoid this popular error, therefore, I shall en- 
deavour to avail myself of natural beauties in this drive, 
without any unnecessary circuit calculated to surprise by 
its extent. I shall rather select those points of view which 
are best contrasted with each other, or which discover 
new features, or the same under different circumstances 
of foreground ; beguiling the length of the way by a suc- 
cession of new and pleasing objects. 

If the circuitous drive round a place becomes tedious 
by its monotony, we must equally avoid too great same- 
ness or confinement in any road which is to be made a 
path of pleasure: a short branch from the principal drive, 
although it meets it again at a little distance, relieves the 
mind by its variety and stimulates by a choice between 
two different objects ; but we must cautiously avoid con- 
fusion, lest we cut a wood into a labyrinth. The princi- 
pal road at Heathfield leads towards the tower, the other 
is no less interesting where it bursts out on one of those 
magnificent landscapes so pleasing in nature, yet so diffi- 



Theory and Practice 123 

cult to be represented in painting; because quantity and 
variety are apt to destroy that unity of composition which 
is expected in an artificial landscape : for it is hardly pos- 
sible to convey an adequate and distinct idea of those 
numerous objects so wonderfully combined in this ex- 
tensive view; the house, the church, the lawns, the woods, 
the bold promontory of Beachy Head, and the distant 
plains boundedbythesea, are all collected in one splendid 
picture, without being crowded into confusion. 

. This view is a perfect landscape, while that from the 
tower is rather a prospect. It is of such a nature as not to 
be well represented by painting, because its excellence 
depends upon a state of the atmosphere which is very 
hostile to the painter's art. An extensive prospect is most 
admired when the distant objects are most clear and dis- 
tinct ; but the painter can represent his distances only by 
a certain haziness and indistinctness, which is termed 
aerial perspective. 

In the woodland counties, such as Hertfordshire, 
Herefordshire, Hampshire, etc., it often happens that 
the most beautiful places may rather be formed by felling 
than by planting trees ; but the effect will be very dif- 
ferent, whether the axe be committed to the hand of 
genius or the power of avarice. The land steward, or 
the timber-merchant, would mark those trees which have 
acquired their full growth and are fit for immediate use, 
or separate those which he deems to stand too near to- 
gether, but the man of science and of taste will search 
with scrutinising care for groups and combinations, such 
as his memory recalls in the pictures of the best mas- 
ters ; these groups he will studiously leave in such places 
as will best display their varied or combined forms. He 
will also discover beauties in a tree which the others would 



124 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

condemn for its decay ; he will rejoice when he finds two 
trees whose stems have long grown so near each other 
that their branches are become interwoven ; he will ex- 
amine the outline formed by the combined foliage of 
many trees thus collected in groups, and removing others 
near them, he will give ample space for their picturesque 
effect. Sometimes he will discover an aged thorn or maple 
at the foot of a venerable oak; these he will respect, not 
only for their antiquity, being perhaps coeval with the 
father of the forest, but knowing that the importance of 
the oak is comparatively increased by the neighbouring 
situation of these subordinate objects ; this will some- 
times happen when young trees grow near old ones, 
as when a light airy ash appears to rise from the same 
root with an oak or an elm. These are all circumstances 
dependent on the sportive accidents of nature; but even 
where art has interfered, where the long and formal line 
of a majestic avenue shall be submitted to his decision, 
the man of taste will pause, and not always break their 
venerable ranks, for his hand is not guided by the lev- 
elling principles or sudden innovations of modern fash- 
ion ; he will reverence the glory of former ages, while 
he cherishes and admires the ornament of the present, 
nor will he neglect to foster and protect the tender sap- 
ling, which promises, with improving beauty, to spread 
a grateful shade for future " tenants of the soil." 

Togi ve, however, such general rules for thinning woods 
as might be understood by those who have never atten- 
tively and scientifically considered the subject would be 
like attempting to direct a man who had never used a pen- 
cil, to imitate the groups of a Claude or a Poussin.^^ 

On this head I have frequently found my instructions 
opposed and my reasons unintelligible to those who look 
at a wood as an object of gain ; and for this reason I am 



Theory and Practice 125 

not sorry to have discovered some arguments in favour 
of my system, of more weight, perhaps, than those which 
relate to mere taste and beauty : these I shall beg leave 
to mention, not as the foundation on which my opinion 
is built, but as collateral props to satisfy those who re- 
quire such support. I St. When two or more trees have 
long grown very near each other, the branches form 
themselves into one mass, or head ; and if any part be 
removed, the remaining trees will be more exposed to 
the power of the wind, by being heavier on one side, 
having lost their balance. 2d. If trees have long grown 
very near together, it will be impossible to take up the 
roots of one without injuring those of another. And 
lastly, although trees at equal distances may grow more 
erect and furnish planks for the use of the navy, yet 
not less valuable to the shipbuilder are those naturally 
crooked branches, or knees, which support the decks 
or form the ribs, and which are always most likely to be 
produced from the outside trees of woods or the fan- 
tastic forms which arise from two or more trees having 
grown very near each other in the same wood, or in 
hedge-rows. It is therefore not inconsistent with the 
considerations of profit as well as picturesque effect to 
plant or to leave trees very near each other, and not 
to thin them in the usual manner without caution. 

In some places belonging to ancient noble families, it 
is not uncommon to see woods of vast extent intersected 
by vistas and glades in many directions ; this is particu- 
larly the case at Burley and at Cashiobury. It is the 
property of a straight glade or vista to lead the eye to 
the extremity of a wood, without attracting the attention 
to its depth. 

I have occasionally been required to fell great quan- 
tities of timber, from other motives than merely to 



126 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

improve the landscape, and in some instances this work 
of necessity has produced the most fortunate improve- 
ments. I do not hesitate to say that some woods might 
be increased fivefold in apparent quantity, by taking 
away a prodigious number of trees, which are really lost 
to view ; but unless such necessity existed, there is more 
difficulty and temerity in suggesting improvement by 
cutting down, however profitable, and however suddenly 
the effect is produced, than by planting, though the latter 
be tedious and expensive. 

I have seldom found great opposition to my hints for 
planting, but to cutting down trees innumerableobstacles 
present themselves ; as if, unmindful of their value and 
heedless of their slow growth, I should advise a military 
abatis, or one general sweep, denuding the face of a 
whole country. What I should advise, both at Burley 
and at Cashiobury, would be to open some large areas 
within the woods, to produce a spacious internal lawn of 
intricate shape and irregular surface, preserving a suffi- 
cient number of detached trees or groups to continue 
the general effect of one great mass of wood. 



Chapter VI 

Fences — The Boundary — The Separation 



THAT the boundary-fence of a place should be con- 
cealed from the house is among the few general 
principles admitted in modern gardening ; but even in 
this instance, want of precision has led to error. The 
necessary distinction is seldom made between the fence 
which encloses a park and those fences which are adapted 
to separate and protect the subdivisions within such en- 
closure. For the concealment of the boundary various 
methods have been adopted, on which I shall make some 
observations. 

I. A plantation is certainly the best expedient for 
hiding the pales; but in some cases it will also hide more 
than is required. And in all cases, if a plantation sur- 
round a place in the manner commonly practised under 
the name of a belt, it becomes a boundary scarce less 
offensive than the pale itself. The mind feels a certain 
disgust under a sense of confinement in any situation, 
however beautiful ; as Dr. Johnson has forcibly illus- 
trated, in describing the feeling of Rasselas in the happy 
valley of Abyssinia. 

1. A second method of concealing a fence is by 
making it of such light materials as to render it nearly 
invisible ; such are fences made of slender iron and wire 
painted green. 

3. A third method is sinking the fence below the 
surface of the ground, by which means the view is not 
impeded and the continuity of lawn is well preserved. 



128 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Where this sunk, fence or fosse is adopted, the deception 
ought to be complete, but this cannot be where grass- 
and corn-lands are divided by such a fence. If it is used 
betwixt one lawn and another, the mind acquiesces in 
the fraud even after it is discovered, so long as the fence 
itself does not obtrude on the sight. We must therefore 
so dispose a fosse or ha ! ha! that we may look across it 
and not along it. For this reason a sunk fence must 
be straight and not curving, and it should be short, else 
the imaginary freedom is dearly bought by the actual 
confinement, since nothing is so difficult to pass as 
a deep sunk fence. 

4. A fourth expedient I have occasionally adopted, 
and which (if I may use the expression) is a more bold 
deception than a sunk fence, viz. a light hurdle instead 
of paling ; the one we are always used to consider as 
a fixed and immoveable fence at the boundary of a park 
or lawn; the other only as an occasional division of one 
part from the other. It is a temporary inconvenience, 
and not a permanent confinement. 

It is often necessary to adopt all these expedients in 
the boundaries and subdivisions of parks ; but the dis- 
gust excited at seeing a fence may be indulged too far, 
if in all cases we are to endeavour at concealment, and 
therefore the various situations and purposes of different 
sorts of fences deserve consideration. 

However we may admire natural beauties, we ought 
always to recollect that, without some degree of art and 
management it Is impossible to prevent the injury which 
vegetation itself will occasion: the smooth bowling-green 
may be covered by weeds In a month, while the pastured 
ground preserves Its neatness throughout the year. There 
Is no medium between the keeping of art and of nature. 
It must be either one or the other, art or nature ; that is. 



Theory and Practice 129 

either mowed, or fed by cattle; and this practical part 
of the management ofa place forms one of the most diffi- 
cult points of the professors of art, because the line of 
fence which separates the dressed ground from the 
pasture is too often objectionable j yet there is not 
less impropriety in admitting cattle to feed in a flower- 
garden than in excluding them from such a tract of 
land as might be fed with advantage. 

At Sheffield Place, the beautiful and long meadow in 
Arno's Vale is a striking example of what I have men- 
tioned ; because, if it were possible, or on the principle 
of economy advisable, to keep all this ground as neatly 
rolled and mowed as the lawn near the house, by which 
it would always appear as it does the first week after the 
hay is carried off, yet I contend that the want of ani- 
mals and animation deprives it of half its real charms ; 
and although many beauties must be relinquished by cur- 
tailing the number of walks, yet others may be obtained, 
and the whole will be more easily kept with proper neat- 
ness by judicious lines of demarcation which shall sepa- 
rate the grounds to be fed from the grounds to be mown ; 
or rather by such fences as shall, on the one hand, pro- 
tect the woods from the encroachments of cattle, and, on 
the other, let the cattle protect the grass-land from the 
encroachment of woods, for such is the power of vege- 
tation at Sheffield Place that every berry soon becomes 
a bush and every bush a tree. 

From this luxuriant vegetation the natural shape of 
the vale is obliterated, the gently sloping banks are 
covered with wood, and the narrow glade in the bottom 
is choked with spreading larches. It is impossible to 
describe by words, and without a map, how this line of 
demarcation should be effected ; but I am sure many 
acres might be given to cattle and the scenery be im- 



130 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

proved, not only by such moving objects, but also by 
their use in cropping those vagrant branches which no 
art could watch with sufficient care and attention. It is 
to such accidental browsing of cattle that we are indebted 
for those magical effects of light and shade in forest 
scenery, which art in vain endeavours to imitate in 
pleasure-grounds. 

Perhaps the brook might be made the natural boundary 
of Arno's Vale, where a deep channel immediately at the 
foot of the hill, with or without posts and rails, would 
make an effectual fence. It will perhaps be objected that 
a walk by the side of such a fence would be intolerable, 
yet surely this watercourse, occasionally filled with a Hvely 
stream, is far preferable to a dry channel ; and yet the only 
walk from the house at present is by the side of what may 
be so called : and, far from considering this a defect, I 
know it derives much of its interest from this very cir- 
cumstance. A gravel walk is an artificial convenience, 
and that it should be protected is one of its first requi- 
sites : therefore, so long as good taste and good sense 
shall coincide, the eye will be pleased where the mind is 
satisfied. Indeed, in the rage for destroying all that ap- 
peared artificial in the ancient style of gardening, I have 
frequently regretted the destruction of those majestic ter- 
races which marked the precise line betwixt nature and art. 

To describe the various sorts of fences suitable to 
various purposes would exceed the limits and intentions 
of this work : every county has its peculiar mode of 
fencing, both in the construction of hedges and ditches, 
which belong rather to the farmer than the landscape 
gardener, and in the different forms and materials of 
pales, rails, hurdles, gates, etc. ; my object is rather to 
describe such application of common expedients as may 
have some degree of use or novelty. 



Theory and Practice 



131 



Amongst these I shall first mention that, instead of sur- 
rounding a young plantation with a hedge and ditch, with 
live quick or thorns, I generally recommend as many 
or even more thorns than trees, to be intermixed in the 
plantation and the whole to be fenced with posts and rails, 
more or less neat, according to the situation. But, except 
near the house, I never suppose this rail to continue after 
the trees (with the aid of such intermixed thorns) are able 
to protect themselves against cattle ; and thus, instead 
o£a hard marked outline, the woods will acquire those 
irregularities which we observe in forest scenery, where 
in some few instances the trees are choked by the thorns, 
though in many they are nursed and reared by their 
protection. 

In the course of this work, I may have frequent oc- 
casion to mention the necessity of providing a fence near 
the house, to separate the dressed lawn from the park 
or feeding-ground: various ingenious devices have been 
contrived to reconcile, with neatness and comfort, the 
practice introduced by Mr. Brown's followers, of setting 
a house in a grass-field. 

The sunk fence or ha ! ha ! in some places answers 
the purpose ; in others a light fence of iron or wire, or 
even a wooden rail, has been used with good effect, if 
not too high ; but generally near all fences the cattle 
make a dirty path, which, immediately in view of the 
windows, is unsightly ; and where the fence is higher than 
the eye, as it must be against deer, the landscape seen 
through its bars becomes intolerable. After various at- 
tempts to remedy these defects by any expedient that 
might appear natural, I have at length boldly had re- 
course to artificial management, by raising the ground 
near the house about three feet, and by supporting it 
with a wall of the same materials as the house. In 



132 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

addition to this, an iron rail on the top, only three feet 
high, becomes a sufficient fence, and forms a sort of 
terrace in front of the house making an avowed separa- 
tion between grass kept by the scythe and the park fed 
by deer or other cattle, while at a little distance it forms 
a base-line or deep plinth, which gives height and con- 
sequence to the house. This will, I know, be objected 
to by those who fancy that everything without the 
walls of a house should be natural ; but a house is an 
artificial object, and, to a certain distance around the 
house, art may be avowed : the only difference of 
opinion will be, where shall this line of utility, separat- 
ing art from nature, commence ? Mr. Brown said, at 
the threshold of the door, yet he contradicted himself 
when he made, as he always did, another invisible line 
beyond it. On the contrary, I advise that it be near the 
house, though not quite so near : and that the line 
should be artificially and visibly marked. ^^ 

When Mr. Brown marked the outline of a great 
wood sweeping across hill and valley, he might indulge 
his partiality for a serpentine or graceful curve, which 
had been then newly introduced by Hogarth's idea 
respecting the line of beauty ; but it may be observed 
that a perfectly straight line, drawn across a valley 
diagonally, appears to the eye the same as this line of 
fancied beauty, and therefore, in many cases, the line 
should be straight. I have already hinted in this chap- 
ter that the fence of a wood or plantation should be 
considered as merely temporary, that is, till the thorns 
planted among the trees can supersede its use. Where- 
fore, it is of little consequence in what manner a hurdle, 
or rough posts and rails, without any hedge or ditch, 
may be placed : a straight line is ever the shortest, and 



Theory and Practice 133 

I have often preferred it, especially as I know that a few 
trees or bushes at each end of such a line will prevent 
the eye from looking along its course. 

Sometimes it happens, from the intermixture of pro- 
perty or other causes, that the fence is obliged to make 
a very acute angle ; this may occasionally be remedied 
by another line of fence fitting to its greatest projection ; 
and as this same principle may be extended to roads, 
walks, or rivers, I shall explain it. 

The sharp elbow or projection of the fence a [Fig. 
17] ceases to be offensive if another fence can be joined 




Fig. 17 

to it, as at b, and the same with the line of road or 
walk ; the branch obviates the defect. 

It has been observed by the adversaries of the art that 
exactly the same line will serve either for a road or a 
river, as it may be filled with gravel or with water. This 
ridicule may perhaps be deserved by those engineers 
who are in the habit of making navigable canals only, 
but the nice observer will see this material difference : 

The banks of a natural river are never equidistant ; 
the water in some places will spread to more than twice 
the breadth it does in others. This pleasing irregularity 
depends on the shape of the ground through which it 
flows : a river seldom proceeds far along the middle of 
a valley, but generally keeps on one side, or boldly 
stretches across to the other, as the high ground resists 



134 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



or the low ground Invites its course. These circum- 
stances in natural rivers should be carefully imitated in 
those of art, and not only the effects, but even the 
causes, if possible, should be counterfeited, especially 
in the form of the shores : thus, the convex side of 
the river at a [in Fig. i8] should have its shores con- 




Fig. i8. 

vex or steep ; and the concave side of the river at b 
should have its shores concave or flat ; because, by 
this means, the course of the river is accounted for. 

There is another circumstance, with respect to lines, 
deserving attention. The course of a river may fre- 
quently shew two or more different bends, which do 
not so intersect each other as to impede the view along 
it ; and these may be increased in proportion to the 
breadth of the river : but in a road, or a walk, espe- 
cially if it passes through a wood or plantation, a sec- 
ond bend should never be visible. The degree of 
curve in a walk or road will therefore depend on its 
width ; thus looking along the narrow line of walk, you 
will not see the second bend : but in the same curve, 




Fig. 19. 



Theory and Practice 



'35 



if the road be broader, we should naturally wish to make 
the curve bolder by breaking from it, according to the 
dotted line from a to b in the diagram [i'ig. 19]. 

When two walks separate from each other, it is always 
desirable to have them diverge in different directions, 
as at A [in Fig. 20], rather than give the idea of reunit- 
ing, as at B. 




Fig. 20. 



Where two walks join each other, it is generally bet- 
ter that they should meet at right angles, as at c, than 
to leave the sharp point, as in the acute angle at d. 

The most natural course for a road or walk is along 
the banks of a lake or river, yet I have occasionally 
observed great beauty in the separation of these two 
lines ; as where the water sweeps to the left, and the 
road to the right, or vice versa. The true effect of this 
circumstance 1 have often attempted to represent on 
paper, but it is one of the many instances in which the 
reality and the picture excite different sensations. 

This chapter might have included every necessary 
remark relative to fences, whether attached to parks or 
farms ; but as I wish to enlarge upon the distinction 
between the improvements designed for ornament and 
those for profit or gain, I shall endeavour to explain 
these different objects, as they appear to me opposite 
in their views and distinct in their characteristics. Both 
are, indeed, subjects of cultivation ; but the cultivation 
in the one is husbandry, and in the other decoration. 



Chapter VII 

Farm and Park Distinct Objects — Beauty and 
Profit seldom compatible 



THE French term Ferme ornee was, I believe, in- 
vented by Mr. Shenstone, who was conscious that 
the English word " Farm " would not convey the idea 
which he attempted to realise in the scenery of the 
Leasowes. That much celebrated spot, in his time, con- 
sisted of many beautiful small fields, connected with 
each other by walks and gates, but bearing no resemb- 
lance to a farm as a subject of profit. I have never 
walked through these grounds without lamenting, not 
only the misapplication of good taste, but that constant 
disappointment which the benevolent Shenstone must 
have experienced in attempting to unite two objects so 
incompatible as ornament and profit. Instead of sur- 
rounding his house with such a quantity of ornamental 
lawn or park only as might be consistent with the size 
of the mansion or the extent of the property, his taste, 
rather than his ambition, led him to ornament the whole 
of his estate, vainly hoping that he might retain all the 
advantages of a farm, blended with the scenery of a park. 
Thus he lived under the continual mortification of dis- 
appointed hope, and, with a mind exquisitely sensible, 
he felt equally the sneer of the great man, at the magni- 
ficence of his attempt, and the ridicule of the farmer, 
at the misapplication of his paternal acres. 

Since the removal of courtyards and lofty garden- 
walls from the front of a house, the true substitute for 



Theory and Practice 137 

the ancient magnificence destroyed is the more cheerful 
landscape of modern park scenery ; and although its 
boundary ought in no case to be conspicuous, yet its 
actual dimensions should bear some proportion to the 
command of property by which the mansion is sup- 
ported. If the yeoman destroys his farm by making 
what is called a Ferme ornee^ he will absurdly sacrifice 
his income to his pleasure, but the country gentleman 
can only ornament his place by separating the features 
of farm and park; they are so totally incongruous as 
not to admit of any union but at the expense either of 
beauty or profit. The following comparative view will 
tend to confirm this assertion. 

The chief beauty of a park consists in uniform verd- 
ure; undulating lines contrasting with each other in 
variety of forms ; trees so grouped as to produce light 
and shade to display the varied surface of the ground ; 
and an undivided range of pasture. The animals fed in 
such a park appear free from confinement, at liberty to 
collect their food from the rich herbage of the valley, 
and to range uncontrolled to the drier soil of the hills. 

The farm, on the contrary, is forever changing the 
colour of its surface in motley and discordant hues ; it 
is subdivided by straight lines of fences. The trees can 
only be ranged in formal rows along the hedges ; and 
these the farmer claims a right to cut, prune, and dis- 
figure. Instead of cattle enlivening the scene by their 
peaceful attitudes or sportive gambols, animals are 
bending beneath the yoke or closely confined to fatten 
within narrow enclosures, objects of profit, not of beauty 
[Plate xiv]. 

This reasoning may be further exemplified by an 
extract from the Red Book of Antony. The shape of 
the ground at Antony is naturally beautiful, but at- 



138 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

tendon to the farmer's interest has almost obliterated 
all traces of its original form ; since the line of fence, 
which the farmer deems necessary to divide arable from 
pasture land, is unfortunately that which, of all others, 
tends to destroy the union of hill and valley. It is 
generally placed exactly at the point where the undu- 
lating surface changes from convex to concave, and of 
course is the most offensive of all intersecting lines ; 
for it will be found that a line of fence, following the 
shape of the ground, or falling in any direction from 
the hill to the valley, although it may offend the eye as 
a boundary, yet it does not injure, and, in some in- 
stances, may even improve the beautiful form of the 
surface. No great improvement, therefore, can be ex- 
pected at Antony, until almost all the present fences 
be removed, although others may be placed in more 
suitable directions. [Plate xiv.] 

I am aware that, in the prevailing rage for agricul- 
ture, it is unpopular to assert that a farm and a park 
may not be united ; but after various efforts to blend 
the two, without violation of good taste, I am convinced 
that they are and must be distinct objects, and ought 
never to be brought together in the same point of view. 

To guard against misrepresentation, let me be allowed 
to say each may fill its appropriate station in a gentle- 
man's estate; we do not wish to banish the nectarine 
from our desserts, although we plant out the wall which 
protects it ; nor would I expunge the common farm 
from the pleasures of the country, though I cannot en- 
courage its motley hues and domestic occupations to 
disturb the repose of park scenery. It is the union not 
the existence of beauty and profit, of laborious exertion 
and pleasurable recreation, against which I would 
interpose the influence of my art; nor let the fastidious 




Farm 




Park 
Plate XIV. Farm and Park 



Theory and Practice 139 

objector condemn the effort till he can convince the 
judgement that, without violation of good taste, he could 
introduce the dairy and the pig-sty (those useful append- 
ages of rural economy) into the recesses of the drawing- 
room or the area of the saloon. The difficulty of uniting 
a park and a farm arises from this material circumstance, 
that the one is an object of beauty, the other of profit. 
The scenery of both consists of ground, trees, water, 
and cattle ; but these are very differently arranged. 
And since a park is less profitable than arable land, the 
more we can diminish the quantity of the former, pro- 
vided it still be in character with the style of the mansion, 
the less we shall regret the sacrifice of profit to beauty. 

The shape and colour of corn-fields and the straight 
lines of fences are so totally at variance with all ideas 
of picturesque beauty that I shall not venture to suggest 
any hints on the subject of a farm as an ornament ; yet 
I think there might be a distinction made between the 
farm of a tenant, who must derive benefit from every 
part of his land, and that occupied by a gentleman for 
the purposes of amusement or experiment. 

It is usual in Hampshire, and, indeed, in the neigh- 
bourhood of many forests, to divide the enclosures of 
a farm by rows of copse-wood and timber, from ten to 
twenty yards wide ; at a little distance these rows appear 
united, and become one rich mass of foliage. This kind 
of subdivision I should wish to be generally adopted on 
experimental farms. The advantages of such plantations 
will be : shady and pleasant walks through the farm ; to 
afford shelter to corn and protect the cattle which are 
grazed on the farm ; to give the whole, at a distance, the 
appearance of one mass of wood; to make an admirable 
cover for game ; and, lastly, if it should ever hereafter 
be thought advisable to extend the lawn, such plantations 



140 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

will furnish ample choice of handsome trees to remain 
single or in groups, as taste or judgement shall direct. 

In some counties the farms consist chiefly of grass- 
land, but even a dairy-farm must be subdivided into 
small enclosures ; and although it is not necessary that 
a lawn near a mansion should be fed by deer, yet it is 
absolutely necessary that it should have the appearance 
of a park, and not that of a farm ; because, in this con- 
sists the only difference betwixt the residence of a landlord 
and his tenant, the gentleman and the farmer : one con- 
siders how to make the greatest immediate advantage of 
his land ; the other must, in some cases, give up the idea 
of profit for the sake of that beauty which is derived 
from an air of liberty, totally inconsistent with those 
lines of confinement and subdivision which are charac- 
teristic of husbandry. 

Since the beauty of pleasure-ground and the profit 
of a farm are incompatible, it is the business of taste 
and prudence so to disguise the latter and to limit the 
former that park scenery may be obtained without 
much waste or extravagance ; but I disclaim all idea of 
making that which is most beautiful also most profit- 
able : a ploughed field and a field of grass are as dis- 
tinct objects as a flower-garden and a potato-ground. 
The difference between a farm and a park consists not 
only in the number offences and subdivisions, but also 
in the management of the lines in which the fences of 
each should be conducted. The farmer, without any 
attention to the shape of the ground, puts his fences 
where they will divide the uplands from the meadows ; 
and in subdividing the ground, he aims only at square 
fields, and consequently straight lines, avoiding all angles 
or corners. This is the origin of planting those triangu- 
lar recesses in a field surrounded bv wood, which the 



Theory and Practice 141 

farmer deems useless ; but which, to the eye of taste, 
produce effects of light and shade. 

There is no mistake so common as that of filling up 
a recess in a venerable wood with a miserable patch of 
young plantation. The outline of a wood can never be 
too boldly indented or too irregular ; to make it other- 
wise, by cutting off the projections or filling up the hol- 
lows, shews a want of taste, and is as incongruous as it 
would be to smooth the furrowed bark of an aged oak. 
Jn a park the fences cannot be too few, the trees too 
majestic, or the views too unconfined. In a farm small 
enclosures are often necessary ; the mutilated pollard or 
the yielding willow, in the farmer's eye, are often pre- 
ferable to the lofty elm or spreading oak, whilst a full 
crop of grain or a copious swath of clover is a more 
gladdening prospect than all the splendid scenery of 
wood and lawn from the windows of a palace. Small 
detached farms, adapted to useful and laborious life, un- 
mixed with the splendours of opulence, but supporters 
of national wealth, are indeed objects of interest in every 
point of view; they want not the adventitious aid of 
picturesque effect to attract peculiar notice; to a bene- 
volent mind they are more than objects of beauty : they 
are blessings to society; nor is it incompatible with 
the pursuit of pleasure sometimes to leave the bound- 
aries of the park, and watch the exertions of laudable 
industry or visit the cottages 

*• Where cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil." 

The monopolist only can contemplate with delight 
his hundred acres of wheat in a single enclosure ; such 
expanded avarice may enrich the man, but will impov- 
erish and distress and (I had almost added) will ulti- 
mately starve mankind. 



Chapter VIII 

Pleasure-Grounds — Flower-Gardens — Greenhouse 
and Conservatories — J^arious Modes of attaching 
them to a House 



IN the execution of my profession, I have often ex- 
perienced great difficulty and opposition in attempt- 
inor to correct the false and mistaken taste for placing 
a large house in a naked grass-field, without any appar- 
ent line of separation betwixt the ground exposed 
to cattle and the ground annexed to the house, which 
I consider as peculiarly under the management of art. 
This line of separation being admitted, advantage may 
be easily taken to ornament the lawn with flowers and 
shrubs, and to attach to the mansion that scene of 
embellished neatness, usually called a pleasure-ground. 
The quantity of this dressed ground was formerly very 
considerable. The roval gardens of Versailles or those 
of Kensington Palace, when filled with companv, want 
no other animation ; but a large extent of ground with- 
out moving objects, however neatly kept, is but a mel- 
ancholy scene. If solitude delight, we seek it rather 
in the covert of a wood or the sequestered alcove of 
a flower-garden than in the open lawn of an extensive 
pleasure-ground. 

I have therefore frequently been the means of restor- 
ing acres of useless garden to the deer or sheep, to which 
they more properly belong. This is now carrying on 
with admirable effect at Bulstrode, where the gardens 
of every kind are on a great scale, and where, from the 



Theory and Practice 143 

choice and variety of the plants, the direction of the 
walks, the enrichment of art, and the attention to every 
circumstance of elegance and magnificence, the pleasure- 
ground is perfect as a whole, while its several parts may 
furnish models of the following different characters of 
taste in gardening : the ancient garden, the American 
garden, the modern terrace-walks, and the flower-gar- 
den. The latter is, perhaps, one of the most varied and 
extensive of its kind, and therefore too large to be other- 
wise artificial than in the choice of its flowers and the 
embellishments of art in its ornaments. 

Flower-gardens on a small scale may, with propriety, 
be formal and artificial ; but in all cases they require 
neatness and attention. On this subject I shall tran- 
scribe the following passage from the Red Book of 
Valley Field.^' 

To common observers, the most obvious difference 
between Mr. Brown's style and that of ancient gardens 
was the change from straight to waving or serpentine 
lines. Hence many of his followers had supposed good 
taste in gardening to consist in avoiding all lines that 
are straight or parallel, and in adopting forms which 
they deem more consonant to nature, without consid- 
ering what objects were natural and what were artificial. 

This explanation is necessary to justify the plan which 
I recommended for the canal in this fiower-garden 
[Plate xv] ; for while I should condemn a long straight 
line of water in an open park, where everything else is 
natural, I should equally object to a meandering canal 
or walk, by the side of a long straight wall, where every- 
thing else is artificial. 

A flower-garden should be an object detached and 
distinct from the general scenery of the place ; and, 
whether large or small, whether varied or formal, it 



144 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

ought to be protected from hares and smaller animals 
by an inner fence : within this enclosure rare plants of 
every description should be encouraged and a provision 
made of soil and aspect for every different class. Beds 
of bog-earth should be prepared for the American plants : 
the aquatic plants, some of which are peculiarly beau- 
tiful, should grow on the surface or near the edges of 
water. The numerous class of rock-plants should have 
beds of rugged stone provided for their reception, with- 
out the affectation of such stones being the natural pro- 
duction of the soil; but, above all, there should be poles 
or hoops for those kinds of creeping plants which spon- 
taneously form themselves into graceful festoons, when 
encouraged and supported by art. Yet, with all these 
circumstances, the flower-garden, except where it is 
annexed to the house, should not be visible from the 
roads or general walks about the place. It may there- 
fore be of a character totally different from the rest of 
the scenery, and its decorations should be as much 
those of art as of nature. 

The flower-garden at Nuneham,^^ without being 
formal, is highly enriched, but not too much crowded 
with seats, temples, statues, vases, or other ornaments, 
which, being works of art, beautifully harmonize with 
that profusion of flowers and curious plants which 
distinguish the flower-garden from natural landscape, 
although the walks are not in straight lines. 

But at Valley Field, where the flower-garden is in 
front of a long wall, the attempt to make the scene 
natural would be affected ; and, therefore, as two great 
sources of interest in a place are variety and contrast, 
the only means by which these can be introduced are in 
this flower-garden, which, as a separate object, becomes 
a sort of episode to the general and magnificent scenery. 




o 



X 



Theory and Practice 145 

The river being everywhere else a hvely stream, rat- 
tling and foaming over a shallow bed of rock or gravel, 
a greater contrast will arise from a smooth expanse of 
water in the flower-garden: to produce this must be 
a work of art, and, therefore, instead of leading an open 
channel from the river to supply it or making it appear 
a natural branch of that river, I recommend that the 
water should pass underground, with regulating sluices 
or shuttles to keep it always at the same height. Thus 
the canal will be totally detached from the river and 
become a distinct object, forming the leading feature of 
the scene to which it belongs; a scene purely artificial, 
where a serpentine canal would be as incongruous as 
a serpentine garden-wall or a serpentine bridge; and, 
strange as it may appear, I have seen such absurdities 
introduced, to avoid nature's supposed abhorrence of 
a straight line. The banks of this canal or fish-pond 
may be enriched with borders of curious flowers, and 
a light fence of green laths will serve to train such as 
require support, while it gives to the whole an air of 
neatness and careful attention. 

But, as the ends of this water should also be marked 
by some building or covered seat, I have supposed the 
entrance to the flower-garden to be under a covered pass- 
age of hoops, on which may be trained various sorts of 
creeping plants; and the farther end may be decorated 
by an architectural building, which I suppose to con- 
sist of a covered seat between two aviaries. It will 
perhaps be objected that a long straight walk can have 
little variety ; but the greatest source of variety in a 
flower-garden is derived from the selection and divers- 
ity of its shrubs and flowers. 

There is no ornament of a flower-garden more appro- 
priate than a conservatory or a greenhouse, where the 



146 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

flower-garden is not too far from the house; but amongst 
the refinements of modern luxury may be reckoned 
that of attaching a greenhouse to some room in the 
mansion, a fashion with which I have so often been 
required to comply that it may not be improper, in this 
work, to make ample mention of the various methods 
by which it has been effected in different places. 

At Bowood, at Wimpole, at Bulstrode, at Attingham, 
at Dyrham Park, at Caenwood, at Thoresby, and 
some other large houses of the last century, green- 
houses were added to conceal offices behind them, and 
they either became a wing of the house or were in the 
same style of architecture: but these were all built at a 
period when only orange-trees and myrtles or a very few 
other greenhouse plants were introduced, and no light 
was required in the roof of such buildings. In many of 
them, indeed, the piers between each window are as large 
as the windows. Since that period the numerous tribe 
of geraniums, ericas, and other exotic plants, requiring 
more light, have caused a very material alteration in the 
construction of the greenhouse; and perhaps the more it 
resembles the shape of a nurseryman's stove, the better it 
will be adapted to the purposes of a modern greenhouse. 
Yet such an appendage, however it may increase its in- 
terior comfort, will never add to the external ornament 
of a house of regular architecture : it is therefore generally 
more advisable to make the greenhouse in the flower- 
garden, as near as possible to without forming a part 
of the mansion; and in these situations great advantage 
maybe taken of treillage ornaments to admit light, whilst 
it disguises the ugly shape of a slanting roof of glass. 

There is one very material objection to a greenhouse 
immediately attached to a room constantly inhabited, 
viz. that the smell and damp from a large body of earth 



Theory and Practice 147 

in the beds or pots is often more powerful than the 
fragrance of the plants; therefore the conservatory should 
always be separated from the house by a lobby or small 
anteroom. But the greatest objection arises from its 
want of conformity to the neighbouring mansion, since 
it is difficult to make the glass roof of a conservatory 
architectural, whether Grecian or Gothic. An arcade is 
ill adapted to the purpose, because, by the form of an 
arch, the light is excluded at the top, where it is most 
essential in a greenhouse; for this reason the flat Gothic 
arch of Henry the Eighth is less objectionable, yet in 
such buildings we must suppose the roof to have been 
taken away to make room for glass; of this kind is the 
conservatory in front of Rendlesham House. 

In the adaptation of ancient forms to modern uses and 
inventions, we are often under the necessity of deviating 
from the rules of true Gothic. Under such circum- 
stances it is perhaps better to apply old expedients to 
new uses than to invent a new and absurd style of Gothic 
or Grecian architecture. At Plas-Newyd, where the 
house partakes of a Gothic character, I suggested the 
addition of a greenhouse, terminating a magnificent 
enfilade through alonglineof principalapartments. The 
hint for this model is taken from the chapter-rooms to 
some of our cathedrals, where an octagon roof is sup- 
ported by a slender pillar in the middle, and if this were 
made of cast-iron, supporting the ribs of a roof of the same 
material, there would be no great impropriety in filling 
the interstices with glass, while the side window-frames 
might be removed entirely in summer, making a beautiful 
pavilion at that season, when, the plants being removed, 
a greenhouse is generally a deserted and unsightly object. 



Chapter IX 



Landscape Gardening and Painting — Pictures 
t?iay imitate Nature, but Nature is not to copy 
Pictures 



AT the time my former publication was in the press, 
the art of landscape gardening was attacked by- 
two gentlemen, Mr. Knight,^" of Herefordshire, and 
Mr. Price,^' of Shropshire ; and I retarded its publica- 
tion till 1 could take some notice of the opinions of 
these formidable, because ingenious, opponents. Hav- 
ing since been consulted on subjects of importance in 
those two counties, I willingly availed myself of oppor- 
tunities to deliver my sentiments as particular circum- 
stances occurred, and therefore, with permission of the 
respective proprietors, I insert the following observa- 
tions from the Red Books of Sufton Court, in Here- 
fordshire, and Attingham, in Shropshire: 

My opinion concerning the improvement of Sufton 
Court involving many principles in the art of landscape 
gardening, I take this opportunity of justifying my 
practice, in opposition to the wild theory which has 
lately appeared ; and shall therefore occasionally allude 
to this new system when it bears any relation to our 
objects at Sufton Court. Having already published 
a volume on the subject of landscape gardening, it will 
be unnecessary to explain the motives which induced 
me to adopt this name for a profession as distinct from 
the art of landscape painting as it is from the art of 
planting cabbages or pruning fruit-trees. The slight 



Theory and Practice 149 

and often gaudy sketches by which I have found it neces- 
sary to elucidate my opinions are the strongest proofs 
that I do not profess to be a landscape painter, but to 
represent the scenes of nature in her various hues of 
blue sky, purple mountains, green trees, etc., which are 
often disgusting to the eye of a connoisseur in painting. 

The best painters in landscape have studied in Italy 
or France, where the verdure of England is unknown : 
hence arises the habit acquired by the connoisseur of 
admiring brown tints and arid foregrounds in the pic- 
tures of Claude and Poussin, and from this cause he 
prefers the bistre sketches to the green paintings of 
Gainsborough. One of our best landscape painters 
studied in Ireland, where the soil is not so yellow as in 
England ; and his pictures, however beautiful in design 
and composition, are always cold and chalky. 

Autumn is the favourite season of study for landscape 
painters, when all nature verges towards decay, when 
the foliage changes its vivid green to brown and orange, 
and the lawns put on their russet hue. But the tints 
and verdant colouring of spring and summer will have 
superior charms to those who delight in the perfection 
of nature, without, perhaps, ever considering whether 
they are adapted to the painter's landscape. 

It is not from the colouring only but the general 
composition of landscapes that the painter and land- 
scape gardener will feel the difference in their respect- 
ive arts ; and although each may occasionally assist the 
other, yet I should no more advise the latter, in laying 
out the scenery of a place, to copy the confined field 
of vision or affect the careless graces of Claude or 
Poussin than I should recommend, as a subject proper 
for a landscape painter, the formal rows or quincunx posi- 
tion of trees in geometric gardening. It has been wittily 



150 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

observed that " the works of nature are well executed, 
but in a bad taste " ; this, I suppose, has arisen from 
the propensity of good taste to display the works of 
nature to advantage, but it does not hence follow 
that art is to be the standard for nature's imitation. 
Neither does it disgrace painting to assert that nature 
may be rendered more pleasing than the finest picture, 
since the perfection of painting seldom aims at exact 
or individual representation of nature. A panorama 
gives a more natural idea of ships at sea than the best 
picture of Vandervelde ; but it has little merit as a 
painting, because it too nearly resembles the original 
to please as an effort of imitative art. My sketches, if 
they were more highly finished, would be a sort of 
panorama, or facsimile, of the scenes they represent, in 
which little effect is attempted on the principle of com- 
position in painting ; but like a profile shadow or sil- 
houette, they may please as portraits, while they offend 
the connoisseur as paintings. The art I profess is of 
a higher nature than that of painting, and is thus very 
aptly described by a French author: "// est a la poesie 
et a la peinture^ ce que la realite est a la description et 
Y original a la copied 

The house at Sufton Court having been built long 
before I had the honour of being consulted, its aspects, 
situation, and general arrangement do not properly 
come under my consideration. Yet, as I shall sug- 
gest a hint for altering the windows in the drawing- 
room, I must consider the different landscapes in each 
direction. The views towards the south and west are 
extensive, and, under certain circumstances of light 
and weather, often wonderfully beautiful ; but, as dis- 
tant prospects depend so much on the state of the 
atmosphere, I have frequently asserted that the views 



Theory AND Practice 151 

from a house, and particularly those from the drawing- 
room, ought rather to consist of objects which evidently 
belong to the place. To express this idea, I have used 
the word appropriation, by which I mean such a por- 
tion of wood and lawn as may be supposed to belong 
to the proprietor of the mansion, occupied by himself, 
not so much for the purposes of gain as of pleasure 
and convenience: this, of course, should be grass, 
whether fed by deer, by sheep, or by other cattle, and 
its subdivisions, if there be any, ought not to be per- 
ifianent. I am ready to allow that this part of modern 
gardening has often been egregiously mistaken and 
absurdly practised ; I find no error so difficult to coun- 
teract as the general propensity for extent, without 
sufficient attention to the size, style, or character of the 
house or of the surrounding estate. 

Extent and beauty have ever appeared to me distinct 
objects ; and a small place, in which the boundary is 
not obtrusive, may be more interesting and more con- 
sonant to elegance and convenience than a large tract 
of land, which has no other merit than that it consists 
of many hundred acres or is encompassed by a pale of 
many miles in circuit, while, perhaps, within this area, 
half the land is ploughed in succession. 

The drawing-room, at present, looks towards the 
south, but there appear to be several reasons for alter- 
ing its aspect : ist, because the hall and dining-room 
command the same prospect, but more advantageously ; 
2d, because the windows, being near the hall-door, a 
carriage-road, which must occasionally be dirty, be- 
comes a bad foreground ; and, lastly, the view toward 
the east will not only be different from the others, but 
is of such a nature as to appear wholly appropriate to 
the place, and, therefore, in strict harmony with the 



152 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

quiet home scene of a country residence. It consists of 
a beautiful lawn or valley, having its opposite bank 
richly clothed with wood, which requires very little as- 
sistance to give it an irregular and pleasing outline, 
and is one of the many subjects more capable of de- 
lighting the eye in nature than in a picture. 

It has been laid down, by a recent author before 
named, as a general rule for improvement, to plant 
largely and cut down sparingly. This is the cautious 
advice of timidity and inexperience, for, in some situ- 
ations, improvement may be effected by the axe rather 
than by the spade, of which Sufton Court furnishes an 
instance : the trees in a straight line, at the bottom of 
the hill, have in vain been encumbered by young trees, 
planted with a view of breaking their formal row, while 
in reality they produce the contrary effect. I rather 
advise boldly taking away all the young trees and part 
of the old ones, but particularly an oak, which not only 
hides the forked stem of a tree behind, but from^ its 
situation depresses the other trees and lessens the mag- 
nitude and importance both of the hill and of the 
grove by which its brow is covered. 

The situation of Attingham is at variance with 
its character, since it is impossible to annex ideas of 
grandeur and magnificence to a mansion with little 
apparent domain. The flat lawn between the highroad 
and the house, although very extensive, yet, possessing 
no variety in the size of the trees, and but little in the 
shape of ground, the eye is deceived in its real distance. 

By the laws of perspective, the nearer any object is 
to the eye, the larger it will appear ; also, the larger 
any object is, the nearer it will appear to the eye : con- 
sequently, the magnitude of the house makes it appear 



Theory and Practice 



^S3 



nearer than it really is, there being no intervening 
objects to divert the attention or to act as a scale 
and assist the eye in judging of the distance. For this 
reason every stranger who sees this house from the 
turnpike road would describe it as a large house with 
very little ground between it and the road. The first 
idea of improvement would be, either to remove the 
house or the road ; but as neither of these expedients 
is practicable, we must have recourse to art to do away 
with this false impression. This I shall consider as form- 
ing the basis of the alteration proposed at Attingham. 

In ancient Gothic structures, where lofty walls and 
various courts intervened between the palace and the 
neighbouring village, there was sufficient dignity or 
seclusion, without that apparent extent of domain which 
a modern mansion requires ; but since the restraint of 
ancient grandeur has given place to modern elegance, 
which supposes greater ease and freedom, the situation 
of a house in the country is more or less defective, in 
proportion as it is more or less bounded or incommoded 
by alien property. Thus a highroad, a ploughed field, 
a barn, or a cottage adjoining a large house, has a 
tendency to lessen its importance ; and hence originates 
the idea of extending park, lawn, or pleasure-grounds 
in every direction from the house ; hence, also, arises 
the disgust we feel at seeing the park-pales and grounds 
beyond, when they are so near or so conspicuous as 
to impress the mind with an idea of not belonging to 
the place. 

Perhaps the love of unity may contribute to the 
pleasure we feel in viewing a park where the boundary 
is well concealed. This desire of hiding the boundary 
introduced the modern practice of surrounding almost 
every park with a narrow plantation or belt, which, if 



154 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



consisting of trees planted at the same time, becomes 
little better than a mere hedge-row, and is deservedly 
rejected by every man of taste ; yet there are many 
situations where a plantation becomes the natural bound- 
ary of a park : such is the screen of wood on the high- 
est ground to the east of Attingham, where it forms a 
pleasing outline to the landscape, without exciting a wish 
to know whether it is the termination of the property. 

In consequence of the apparent want of extent in the 
park or lawn at Attingham, it was suggested to add 
many hundred acres of land to the east, by removing 
the hedges of the adjoining fields. This would have 
increased the real without extending the apparent mag- 
nitude of the park : but I contend that oftentimes it 
is the appearance and not the reality of extent which 
is necessary to satisfy the mind ; for the size of the park 
has little reference to that of the estate of the proprie- 
tor. The land attached to a villa, near a city, may with 
propriety be surrounded by pales, or a wall, for the 
sake of privacy and seclusion, but it is absurd to enclose 
more of a distant domain than is necessary for the 
beauty of the place ; besides, if this park or lawn had 
been extended a mile farther to the east, the confine- 
ment to the south, which is in the front of the house, 
would not have been done away, and, consequently, 
to the traveller passing the road the apparent extent 
would not have been increased ; and without some 
striking or beautiful feature, extent alone is seldom 
interesting. 

If large trees, river scenery, or bold inequality of 
ground can be included by enlarging a park, they are 
sufficient motives ; but views of distant mountains, 
which may be seen as well from the highroad, are not 
features that justify extensive lawn over a flat surface.^' 



Theory and Practice 155 

To do away with the impression of confinement at 
Attingham, the park should be extended across the 
road, and thus the stranger will be induced to believe 
he passes through and not at the extremity of the park. 
Secondly, some striking and interesting features should 
be brought into notice, such as the junction of the Sev- 
ern and the Terne, which may be actually effected within 
the limits of the park ; and particularly the great arch 
across the Terne, of which no adequate advantage is at 
present taken. There are, also, some large trees and 
many interesting points of view, which well deserve 
attention in a plan professing to increase the number 
of beautiful circumstances rather than the number of 
acres in the park. 

In opposition to Mr, Price's idea, that all improve- 
ment of scenery should be derived from the works of 




Fig. 21. Scene in the grounds at Attingham 

great painters, I shall observe that there are, at pre- 
sent, very near the house, some fragments of an old mill 
and brick arches [see Fig. 21] which make a charm- 
ing study for a painter; the composition is not unlike 
a beautiful picture of Ruisdale's, at Attingham, which 
every man of taste must admire : of this scene, as it 
now exists, I have endeavoured to give a faint idea. 



156 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Among the trees is seen part of the colonnade thatjoins 
the east wing to the body of the house : from the gen- 
eral character of this scenery, we cannot but suppose this 
to be a fragment of some ruined Grecian temple, and no 
part of a modern inhabited palace. Hence it is evident 
that the mind cannot associate the ideas of elegance 
with neglect or perfect repair and neatness with ruin and 
decay: such objects, therefore, however picturesque in 
themselves, are incongruous and misplaced if near such 
a palace as Attingham. 

Another mistake of the admirers of painters' land- 
scape is the difference in the quantity of a natural and 
an artificial composition : the finest pictures of Claude 
(and here again 1 may refer to a picture at Atting- 
ham) seldom consist of more than one fifth of that field 
of vision which the eye can with ease behold, without 
any motion of the head, viz. about 20 degrees out of 
90 ; and we may further add that without moving the 
body our field of vision is extended to 180 degrees. 

Now it is obvious that the picture of Claude, already 
mentioned, which is between four and five feet long, 
if it had been extended to 20 or 30 feet, would not 
have been so pleasing a composition ; because, instead 
of a picture, it would have resembled a panorama. This 
I may further instance, in the view from the breakfast- 
room, consisting of a distant range of mountains, by 
far too long for any picture. Yet a small part of this 
view might furnish a subject for the painter, by sup- 
posing a tree to form the foreground of the landscape. 
Are we then to plant such a tree, or a succession of 
such trees, to divide the whole field of vision into sep- 
arate landscapes ? and would not such an attempt at 
improvement be like placing five or six pictures of 
Claude in one long frame ? The absurdity of the idea 



Theory and Practice 157 

proves the futility of making pictures our models for 
natural improvements : however I may respect the 
works of the great masters in painting, and delight to 
look at nature with a painter's eye, yet I shall never 
be induced to believe that " the best landscape painter 
would be the best landscape gardener."" 

The River Terne, being liable to floods from every 
heavy shower of rain which falls upon the neighbour- 
ing hills, has formed a number of difi^erent channels 
and islands : some of these channels are dry when the 
water is low, and some of the islands are covered when 
the water is high. These irriguous appearances have 
charms in the eye of a landscape painter, who, from 
some detached parts, might select a study for a fore- 
ground, at a happy moment when the water is neither 
too high nor too low. But the landscape gardener has 
a difi^erent object to effect ; he must secure a constant 
and permanent display of water, which may be seen at 
a distance, and which shall add brilliancy and grandeur 
to the character of the scenery: it is not an occasionally 
meandering brook that such a palace or such a bridge 
requires, but it is an ample river, majestically flowing 
through the park, and spreading cheerfulness on all 
around it. 

Mr. Price has written an essay to describe the prac- 
tical manner of finishing the banks of artificial water, 
but I confess, after reading it with much attention, 
I despair of making any practitioner comprehend his 
meaning ; indeed, he confesses that no workman can 
be trusted to execute his plans. It is very true that 
large pieces of water may be made too trim and neat 
about the edges, and that often, in Mr. Brown's works, 
the plantations are not brought near enough to the 
water ; but if the banks are finished smoothly at first, 



158 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

the treading of cattle will soon give them all the irreg- 
ularity they require ; and with respect to plantations, 
we must always recollect that no young trees can be 
planted without fences, and every fence near the water 
is doubled by reflection ; consequently, all rules for 
creating bushes to enrich the banks are nugatory, ex- 
cept where cattle are excluded. 

The difficulty of clothing the banks of artificial 
water has been a source of complaint made against 
Mr. Brown, for having left them bare and bald ; but 
the river at Attingham will be sufficiently enriched 
by the few trees already growing on its margin, and by 
the plantations proposed on the island. 

There is a part of the River Terne, above the house, 
where both its banks are richly clothed with alders, 
and every person of discernment must admire the 
beauty of this scene, but if the same were continued 
quite to the bridge the river would be invisible from the 
house and from every part of the park : how, then, is it 
possible that the banks of water should everywhere be 
covered with wood ? I contend that a broad ample 
channel, in proportion to the bridge, will be far more in 
character with the style of the house and the bridge 
than the more intricate, which, on paper, is perhaps 
more picturesque. If it is ridiculous to imitate nature 
badly in a picture, how much more ridiculous will it 
appear to imitate a picture badly in nature ; an imita- 
tion which, after all, must be left for half a century, 
to be finished by the slow process of " neglect and ac- 
cident." 

The water at Attingham having been completed, 
and a new channel made to connect the River Terne 
with the Severn, the improvement is obvious to every 
person who travels the great road to Shrewsbury : it is 



Theory and Practice 



^59 



therefore needless to elucidate these observations by 
any views of the place, especially as painting can give 
but an imperfect idea of the situation commanding 
that extensive range of hills which separates England 
from Wales. 



Chapter X 



Ancient and Modern Gardening — Change of Style 
— Art and Nature considered 



IT is not my intention to enter into a minute history 
of gardening, or, pursuing the course of some other 
writers, to trace back the gradual progress of the art from 
Brown to Kent, from Kent to Le Notre, from him to the 
Italians, the Romans, the Grecians, and, ultimately, to 
Adam, who was " the first gardener " ; but I shall confine 
myself to a few observations on the change in the fashion 
of gardens, to shew how much of each difi^erent style 
may be preserved or rejected with advantage; and lest 
it should appear to some readers that my allusions are 
too frequent to the late theoretical writers on landscape 
gardening, it is necessary to observe that many of the 
manuscripts whence I now transcribe were written long 
before Mr. Knight's and Mr. Price's works appeared ; of 
course the allusions relate to other authors on the sub- 
ject, whose sentiments these gentlemen seem to have 
taken up without acknowledging that they had ever 
read them. 

It may not be uninteresting here to mention a few 
of the authors who have written on gardening, especially 
as the works of some are become scarce, and are not 
generally known, 

I scarcely need mention the late Horace Walpole, who, 
in his lively and ingenious manner, has given both the 
history and the rules of the art better than any other 
theorist. 



Theory and Practice i6i 

The history of gardening is very learnedly discussed, 
in a brief inquiry into the knowledge the ancients pos- 
sessed of the art, by Dr. Faulkner; and the same sub- 
ject is more lightly but not less correctly or elegantly 
treated by my late ingenious friend, Daniel Malthus, 
Esq., in a preface to his translation of " D'Ermenonville 
de la Composition des Paysages." 

Every person the least interested in this study must 
have read the beautiful Poems of Mason, and De 
Lisle, the "Oriental Gardening " of Sir William Cham- 
bers, and the "Observations on Modern Gardening," 
by Mr. Whately; but, perhaps, few have seen that 
elaborate performance, in five volumes quarto, published 
in German and also in French, under the title of" Theorie 
de I'Art des Jardins," by M. Hirschfeld, a work in 
which are collected extracts from almost every book, in 
every European language, that has any reference to the 
scenery of nature or to the art of landscape gardening. ^"^ 

When gardening was conducted by the geometric 
principles of the school of Le Notre, the perfection of 
planting was deemed to consist in straight lines of trees, 
or regular corresponding forms of plantation; and as 
the effect of this style of gardening greatly depended on 
a level surface of ground, we often find that prodigious 
labour was employed to remove those inequalities 
which nature opposed to this ill-judging taste. 

At Wimpole the natural shape of the surface seemed 
to invite this fashion for geometric forms; the ground 
was covered in every direction with trees in straight 
lines, circles, squares, triangles, and in almost every 
mathematical figure. These had acquired the growth of 
a century when the taste of gardening changed, and as 
every absurd fashion is apt to run from one extreme to 



i62 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

another, the world was then told that " Nature abhorred 
a straight line"; that perfection in gardening consisted 
in waving lines; and that it was necessary to obliterate 
every trace of artificial interference. And now manv 
a lofty tree, the pride and glory of our ancient palaces, 
was rooted up, because it stood on the same line with its 
fellows and contemporaries; and because these ranks of 
sturdy veterans could not,^^ Jij^g a regiment of soldiers, 
be marched into new shapes, according to the new system 
of tactics, they were unmercifully cut down ; not to dis- 
play beautiful scenery behind them, but merely to break, 
their ranks : while a few were spared which could be formed 
into platoons: — this was called clumping an avenue. 

The position of all the large trees on the plain near 
the house at Wimpole shews the influence of fashion 
in these different stvles ; the original lines may be easily 
traced by the trees which remain, and the later formed 
clumps are scattered about, like the ghosts of former 
avenues, or monstrous shapes which could not be sub- 
dued. 

One great advantage of Wimpole arises from its 
comparative beauty, or the contrast between the place 
and its environs. The counties of Cambridge and 
Huntingdon consist generally of flat ground, while the 
hills are open corn-fields thinly intersected by hedges. 
But Wimpole abounds in beautiful shapes of ground 
and is richly clothed with wood ; it is, therefore, like a 
flower in the desert, beautiful in itself, but more beau- 
tiful by its situation. Yet no idea of this beauty can be 
formed from the approach to the house, because the 
plain is everywhere covered with lofty trees which hide 
not only the inequalities of the ground, but also the 
depth of wood in every direction ; and although the 
original straight lines of the trees have been partially 



Theory and Practice 163 

broken, the intervals shew none of the varied scenery 
beyond. I do not, therefore, hesitate to say that, by 
judiciously removing some hundred trees, the place 
would be made to appear more wooded : for it fre- 
quently happens that a branch near the eye may hide 
a group of twenty trees, or a single tree conceal a whole 
grove. 

In thus recommending the liberal use of the axe, 
I hope I shall not be deemed an advocate for that bare 
and bald system of gardening which has been so justly 
rfdiculed. I do not profess to follow either Le Notre 
or Brown, but, selecting beauties from the style of each, 
to adopt so much of the grandeur of the former as may 
accord with a palace and so much of the grace of the 
latter as may call forth the charms of natural landscape. 
Each has its proper situation ; and good taste will make 
fashion subservient to good sense. 

The modern rage for natural landscape has fre- 
quently carried its admirers beyond the true limits of 
improvement, the first object of which ought to be 
convenience, and the next picturesque beauty. 

My taste may, perhaps, be arraigned for asserting 
that the straight terrace at the Hasells ought not to 
be disturbed : although it is a remnant of geometric 
gardening of the last century, yet it is an object of such 
comfort and convenience that it would be unpardon- 
able to destroy it for no other reason than because a 
straight walk is out of fashion ; this would be acknow- 
ledging (what I protest against) that the art of landscape 
gardening ought to be under the dominion of fashion. 

If this terrace were constantly an object of view, or 
very materially offensive to the general scenery of the 
place, its linear direction might cut the composition 



164 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

and destroy its effect as a natural landscape : in its 
present situation it is merely a foreground or frame 
to a pleasing picture, and the view from hence is so 
fine, so varied, and so interesting that the spectator 
must be fastidious indeed who could turn away dis- 
gusted, because it is seen over a dipt hedge, or with 
a broad flat walk in its foreground. A beautiful scene 
will always be beautiful, whether we view it from an 
alcove, a window, or a formal terrace: and the latter, 
in the height of summer, may sometimes answer the 
purpose of an additional room or gallery when there 
is much company, who delight to saunter on such an 
esplanade ; while the intricacies of a winding path are 
better calculated for a solitary walk. 

The ancient dignity of character in the house at 
Cobham would be violated by the too near intrusion 
of that gay prettiness which generally accompanies a 
garden-walk; yet convenience and comfort require such 
a walk at no great distance from the house. ^*^ I shall, 
perhaps, astonish some of the improvers in modern 
serpentine gardening by declaring that, as an appendage 
to this ancient mansion, I would prefer the broad and 
stately mall along a straight line of terrace to their too 
frequently repeated waving line of beauty. 

This sort of walk may, I think, be still further en- 
couraged, where it already in some degree exists, to 
the north of the kitchen-garden, which, falling from 
the eye, might easily be concealed from the park by a 
shrubbery kept low ; not to intercept the view towards 
the opposite bank in the park, while it would give an 
imaginary increase of depth to the vale beneath. And 
to remove the objection of returning by the same walk, 
a second terrace might be carried still higher on the 
bank, and by the style and accompaniment of its planta- 



Theory and Practice 165 

tion, all sameness would easily be obviated, perhaps, 
by making one of them a winter walk, planted chiefly 
with evergreens and shrubs. To justify my opinion it 
is necessary to guard against a misconstruction of what 
I have advanced, lest I may be accused of reviving the 
old taste of gardening. I do not recommend the ter- 
race as an object of beauty in all cases, but of conven- 
ience ; for the same reason that I advise the proximity 
of a kitchen-garden, provided the principal apartments 
do not look upon either. 

Our ancestors were so apt to be guided by utility 
that they at length imagined it was in all cases a sub- 
stitute for beauty ; and thus we frequently see ancient 
houses surrounded not only by terraces, avenues, and 
fish-ponds, but even stables and the meanest offices 
formed a part of the view from the windows of their 
principal rooms. I am far from recommending a return 
to these absurdities ; yet, in the rage for picturesque 
beauty, let us remember that the landscape holds an 
inferior rank to the historical picture : one represents 
nature, the other relates to man in a state of society. If 
we banish winter comforts from the country-seats of our 
nobility, we shall also banish their inhabitants, who gen- 
erally reside there more in winter than in summer; and 
there is surely no object of greater comfort and utility 
belonging to a garden and a country mansion, than a 
dry spacious walk for winter, sheltered by such trees as 
preserve their clothing, while all other plants are desti- 
tute of foliage. 

I will add the opinion of a very able commentator, 
who, mentioning "this self-evident proposition, that 
a rural scene in reality and a rural scene on canvas are 
not precisely one and the same thing," says, " that point 
in which they differ here is not itself without a guiding 



i66 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

principle: utility sets up her claim and declares that, 
however concurrent the genuine beauty of nature and 
picture may be, the garden scene is hers, and must be 
rendered conformable to the purposes of human life ; 
if to these every consonant charm of painting be 
added, she is pleased; but by no means satisfied, if 
that which is convertible to use be given absolutely 
to wildness." " 

The natural situation of Burley differs from that of 
every other large place which has fallen under my con- 
sideration. To say that the house stands on a lofty hill 
would be giving a very imperfect idea of its situation ; 
on the contrary, it ought rather to be described as a 
magnificent palace, built on the extremity of a vast plain, 
or, what is called by geographers, a table mountain, from 
the brow of which it boldly commands an assemblage 
of wood, water, lawn, and distant country, spread mag- 
nificently at its base. 

The view from the principal suite of apartments, how- 
ever rich and varied in itself, becomes much more inter- 
esting by the power of contrast, because the great plain 
to the north affords no promise of such views, and, there- 
fore, the surprise occasioned by this unexpected scen- 
ery, is a subject worthy the attention of the improver: 
the effects of surprise are seldom to be produced by 
art, and those who attempt to excite it by novelty or 
contrast are in danger of falling into puerile conceits.^' 
But where, as in the present instance, much of the nat- 
ural sublime exists, this effect should be increased by 
every means which does not betray the insignificance 
of art, when compared with the works of nature. For 
this reason, if the approach were brought along the 
straight line of avenue, gradually ascending, the situa- 



Theory and Practice 167 

tion of Burley would lose much of its sublimity by 
anticipation. 

The prevalence of fashion, in all subjects of taste, 
will at times have its influence, but as fashion is more 
the effect of whim and caprice than of reason and ar- 
gument, it has been my great object to rescue land- 
scape gardening from its fascinating power; and while 
accommodating myself to the wishes of those who con- 
sult me, to the customs of the times, or to the peculiar- 
ity of various situations and characters, I hope never 
to lose sight of the great and essential object of my 
profession, the elegance, the magnificence, and the con- 
venience of rural scenes, appropriated to the uses of 
a gentleman's habitation. ^^ 

This may be equally effected, whether we revert to the 
formal fashion of straight walled gardening or adopt 
the serpentine lines of modern improvers, under the 
pretended notion of imitating nature. But there is a 
certain dignity of style in Burley, which, like the cum- 
brous robes of our nobility, neither can nor ought to be 
sacrificed to the innovation of fashion or the affectation 
of ease and simplicity. 

Mr. Burke justly observes that "a true artist should 
put a generous deceit on the spectators and effect the 
noblest designs by easy methods. Designs that are vast 
only by their dimensions are always the sign of a com- 
mon and low imagination. No work of art can be great 
but as it deceives; to be otherwise is the prerogative 
of nature only." This precept seems to have been 
overlooked in the attempt to modernise Burley: the 
spacious court surrounded by a colonnade has been 
frequently quoted as a wonderful effort of art : and 
when the distant country was excluded by a wall, by 
the village, and by trees beyond it, this ample area was 



1 68 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

undoubtedly one of the most striking appendages of 
a palace. But the moment one side of the quadrangle 
is opened to the adjacent country, it shrinks from the 
comparison, and the long fronts of opposite offices seem 
extended into the vast expanse, without any line of 
connexion. This comparative insignificancy of art is 
nowhere more strongly exemplified than in the large 
wet docks of Liverpool and Hull : while the margins 
of the river are left dry by the ebbing tides, we look 
with astonishment at the capacious basins filled with 
a vast body of water, but when the tide flows to the 
same level, and the floodgates are thrown open, the 
extent and importance of the river convert these arti- 
ficial basins into creeks or mere pools. It is, therefore, 
only by avoiding a comparison with the works of 
nature that we can produce the eflPect of greatness in 
artificial objects; and a large court surrounded by build- 
ings can have no pretensions to be deemed a natural 
object. 

After removing the wall which formed the front 
of the court, a doubt arose whether the present gate 
and porter's lodge should or should not remain, 
and how to approach the house to the greatest 
advantage. 

There is a certain point of distance from whence 
every object appears at its greatest magnitude: but in 
cases where symmetry prevails, the distance may be 
rather greater, because exact correspondence of parts 
assists the mind in forming an idea of the whole. I 
should therefore conceive that the effect of surprise, 
of magnificence, and of the sublime, in this effort of art, 
is greatly injured by seeing the interior of this ample 
court before we arrive at the entrance gate; because 
that is nearly the spot where the eye is completely filled 



Theory and Practice 169 

and gratified by the surrounding objects. But as this 
view should not be momentary, I suppose the road to 
continue from the gate in a straight line, till it falls into 
a circle with the colonnade ; and here the broad road 
may be intercepted with posts and chains, to direct car- 
riages into that course which displays the whole area to 
the greatest advantage, passing nearer to the side colon- 
nade, shewing that in perspective, and presenting the 
house at the angle to shew its depth. The manner in 
which this is effected by sweeping round the court is 
iTot to be described by painting, because every step 
varies the position of the several parts, as they advance 
or recede perspectivelv. 

Hitherto I have spoken of the north or entrance 
front and courtyard of Burley, the whole of which I 
would treat only as a work of art, and, if possible, 
exclude all view of the country. But to the south, the 
prospect or natural landscape is the leading feature for 
our consideration. The steep descent from the house 
has been cut into a number of terraces, each supported 
by a red brick wall ; and if these several walls had 
been of stone, or architecturally finished like the old 
costly hanging-gardens of France and Italy, they might 
perhaps have added more magnificence to the house 
than any improvement which modern gardening could 
suggest, but they are mean in their forms, diminutive 
in their height, and out of harmony in their colour. 
Yet the style of the house and the steepness of the 
declivity will not admit of their being all taken away 
to slope the ground, in the manner too often practised 
by modern improvers. 

I therefore make a compromise between ancient and 
modern gardening, between art and nature, and by in- 
creasing the height, or rather the depth, from the upper 



lyo The Art of Landscape Gardening 

terrace to the lower level of the ground, I make that 
the Hne of demarcation beween the dressed ground and 
the park; and happy would it be for the magnificence 
of English scenery if many such stately terraces near 
a palace had been thus preserved. 



Chapter XI 



Endless Variety of Situation and Character — First 
Impressions — Roads — Entrances — Adaptation 
of Ornamental Buildings 



I HAVE occasionally been asked, when visiting a 
beautiful spot, which, of all the places I had seen, 
was the most beautiful? It is impossible to define 
those circumstances which, on different persons, make 
different impressions at first sight; perfection is no more 
to be found in the works of nature than in those of art. 
Such is the equal providence of the great Author of 
nature that every place has its beauties and its deform- 
ities, and, whether situated among the mountains of 
Wales or on the margin of Clapham Common, it will 
not only be endeared to its proprietor, but to the dis- 
cerning stranger, by some peculiar features of beauty. 

The materials of natural landscape are ground, wood, 
and water, to which man adds buildings, and adapts 
them to the scene. It is therefore from the artificial 
considerations of utility, convenience, and propriety, 
that a place derives its real value in the eyes of a man 
of taste : he will discover graces and defects in every 
situation ; he will be as much delighted with a bed of 
flowers as with a forest thicket, and he will be as much 
disgusted by the fanciful affectation of rude nature in 
tame scenery as by the trimness of spruce art in that 
which is wild : the thatched hovel in a flower-garden 
and the treillis bocage [grove trellis, trellis-work arched 
overhead] in a forest are equally misplaced. 



1 72 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

General principles, or general designs, which may be 
applicable to all situations, would be alike impossible. 
The painter copies, in their respective places, the eyes, 
the nose, and mouth of the individual, but, without 
adding character, his picture will not be interesting. 
The landscape gardener finds ground, wood, and water, 
but with little more power than the painter, of changing 
their relative position ; he adds character, by the point 
of view in which he displays them, or by the ornaments 
of art with which they are embellished. To describe by 
words the various characters and situations of all the 
places in which I have been consulted would be tedi- 
ous, and to give views of each would alter the design 
of this work : I shall, therefore, dedicate this chapter to 
a miscellaneous assemblage of extracts from different 
Red Books, without aiming at connexion or arrange- 
ment. These may furnish examples of variety in the 
treatment of various subjects ; while the reasons on 
which their treatment is founded will, I hope, be 
deemed so far conclusive that some general principles 
may be drawn from them, tending to prove that there 
are rules for good taste. 

There is no principle of the art so necessary to be 
studied as the effects produced on the mind by the 
first view of certain objects, or, rather, that general dis- 
position of the human mind by which it is capable of 
strongly receiving first impressions. We frequently 
decide on the character of places, as well as of persons, 
with no other knowledge of either than what is acquired 
by the first glance of their most striking features ; and 
it is with difficulty or with surprise that the mind is 
afterwards constrained to adopt a contrary opinion. 
Thus, if the approach to a house be over a flat plain 



Theory and Practice 173 

we shall pronounce the situation to be flat also, although 
the ground immediately near the house be varied and 
uneven ; whilst, on the contrary, if the road winds its 
course over gentle hills and dales and at length ascends 
a steep bank to the house, we shall always consider it as 
standing on an eminence, although the views from the 
house may be perfectly flat. 

I have, therefore, watched with nice attention the 
first ideas which have occurred to me in visiting any 
new subject; and if a more intimate knowledge of it in- 
duces me afterwards to alter my opinion, 1 then inquire 
into the causes which influenced my former false judge- 
ment, that I may by this means increase or diminish 
them accordingly. 

One of the first objects of improvement should be 
to adapt the character of the grounds to that of the 
house; and both should bear some proportion to the 
extent of property by which they are surrounded. 

At Stoke, in Herefordshire, the house and park are as 
perfectly separated from each other by a turnpike road 
as if they were the property of different persons ; and 
both are seen from that road in the most unfavourable 
points of view. Of the house little is visible except the 
roof and chimneys ; and with respect to the park, which 
naturally abounds with the most pleasing shapes of 
ground, richly clothed with wood, the road passes so 
immediately at the foot of the declivity that the whole 
appears foreshortened, and all its beauties are entirely 
lost. To divert the course of this road, therefore, be- 
comes the first object of improvement. 

I have, on several occasions, ventured to condemn 
as false taste that fatal rage for destroying villages or 
depopulating a country, under the idea of its being 



174 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

necessary to the importance of a mansion : from the 
same Red Book the following extract is taken : 

As a number of labourers constitutes one of the 
requisites of grandeur, comfortable habitations for its 
poor dependants ought to be provided. It is no more 
necessary that these habitations should be seen immedi- 
ately near the palace than that their inhabitants should 
dine at the same table ; but if their humble dwellings 
can be made a subordinate part of the general scenery, 
they will, so far from disgracing it, add to the dignity 
that wealth can derive trom the exercise of benevolence. 
Under such impressions and with such sentiments 1 am 
peculiarly happy in being called upon to mark a spot 
for new cottages, instead of those which it is necessary 
to remove, not absolutely because they are too near the 
house, for that is hardly the case with those cottages in 
the dell, but because, the turnpike road being removed, 
there will be no access for the inhabitants but through 
a part of the park, which cannot then be private. I must 
advise, however, that some one or more of the houses 
in this dell be left, and inhabited either as a keeper's 
house, a dairy, or a menagerie, that the occasional smoke 
from the chimneys may animate the scene. The pictur- 
esque and pleasing effect of smoke ascending, when 
relieved by a dark hanging wood in the deep recess of 
a beautiful glen like this, is a circumstance by no means 
to be neglected. 

As an example of a place in a mountainous country 
the following extract from the Red Book of Riig, in 
North Wales, is subjoined : 

At a period when the ancient family honours of a 
neighbouring country are rooted out with savage barbar- 
ity, I rejoice in an opportunity of contributing my assist- 



Theory ANij I-*ractice 175 

ance to preserve in this, every vestige of ancient or 
hereditary dignity ; and I should feel it a kind of sacri- 
lege in taste to destroy an atom of that old, ruinous, 
and almost uninhabitable mansion at Riig, if it were 
to be replaced by one of those gaudy scarlet houses, 
which we see spring up, like mushrooms, in the neigh- 
bourhood of large manufacturing towns. I am, how- 
ever, restrained from indulging to its full extent my 
veneration for antiquity, by reflecting that modern 
<^mfort and convenience are the first objects to be con- 
sulted in the improvement of a modern residence; and 
therefore I trust I shall neither incur the censure of 
those who know and feel the comforts of the age we 
live in nor offend the genius of the place by "call- 
ing from the vasty deep the angry spirits" of Owen 
Glendwr of Burgontumi, who formerly inhabited this 
domain. 

In a country like that of North Wales, abounding in 
magnificent scenery, the views from the house should 
rather aim at comfort and appropriation of landscape 
than extensive prospect ; because the latter may be had 
from every field or public road on the mountains, and 
the attempt to make a large park or domain would be 
fruitless where a lawn of a thousand acres would appear 
but a small spot, compared with the wide expanse of 
country seen from the neighbouring hills. I should there- 
fore advise the lawn to be confined within the compass 
of forty or fifty acres ; yet from the variety of its surface 
and the diversity of objects it contains there will be more 
real beauty and even magnificence within this small 
enclosure than in other parks of many hundred acres. 

However partial we may be to grand and extensive 
prospects, they are never advisable for the situation of a 
house, in which convenience and comfort should doubt- 



176 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

less take the lead of every other consideration. The fre- 
quent rains and violent storms of wind to which all 
mountainous countries are exposed, have taught the 
mhabitants not only to choose warm valleys for their 
houses, but have also introduced a style of architecture 
peculiarly suited to those situations : the small towns 
of Llangollen and Corwen, as well as those in the 
mountains of Switzerland, have all low sheds or pent- 
houses, under which the inhabitants may take shelter 
from occasional driving storms. The arcade of Gothic 
architecture is infinitely more applicable to such situa- 
tions than the lofty portico of Greece, which is rather 
calculated for those warm regions where man wants pro- 
tection from the vertical beams of a burning sun. I hope, 
therefore, that both the character and situation of Riig 
will justify a design for a new house, which may possess 
a degree of grandeur and magnificence not incompatible 
with modern convenience. 

There is no circumstance in which bad taste is so con- 
spicuous as in the misuse of ornaments and decora- 
tions ; an observation equally applicable to all the 
polite arts, and not less true with respect to eloquence, 
poetry, "music, and painting than to architecture and 
gardening. Thus, for instance, a rural scene may be 
delightful without any building or work of art, yet, if 
judiciously embellished by artificial objects in character 
with the scene, the landscape will be more perfect ; on 
the contrary, if encumbered by buildings in a bad taste, 
or crowded by such as are too large, too small, or in 
any respect inapplicable, however correct they may be 
as works of art, the scene will be injured, and thus 
a thatched hovel may be deemed an ornament, where 
a Corinthian temple would be misplaced, or vice versa. 



Theory and Practice 177 

In this miscellaneous chapter may properly be in- 
serted some specimens of various buildings, to eluci- 
date the truth of an observation, which hardly seems to 
require enforcing; yet the frequent introduction of orna- 
mental buildings, copied from books, without reference 
to the character and situation of the scenery, is not less 
fatal to the good taste of the country than it would be 
to the life of individuals to use medical prescriptions 
without inquiring into the nature and cause of diseases. 

The facility with which a country carpenter can erect 
small buildings intended for ornament may perhaps 
account for their frequency ; but I am not ashamed to 
confess that I have often experienced more difficulty 
in determining the form and size of a hovel or a park 
entrance than in arranging the several apartments of 
a large mansion ; indeed, there is no subject on which 
I have so seldom satisfied my own judgement as in that 
of an entrance to a park. 

The custom of placing a gate between two square 
boxes, or, as it is called,, a " pair of lodges," has always 
appeared to me absurd, because it is an attempt to give 
consequence to that which in itself is mean ; the habita- 
tion of a single labourer, or perhaps of a solitary old 
woman to open the gate, is split into two houses for 
the sake of childish symmetry. As this absurd fashion 
of a pair of lodges deserves to be treated with ridicule, 
I cannot help mentioning the witty comment of a cele- 
brated lady, who, because they looked like tea-caddies, 
wrote on two such lodges, in large letters, " Green " and 
" Bohea." And very often the most squalid misery is 
found in the person thus banished from society, who 
inhabits a dirty room of a few feet square. It is the 
gate, and not the dwelling of the person who opens it, 
that ought to partake of the character of the house. 



lyS The Art of Landscape Gardening 

where architectural display is necessary ; and this prin- 
ciple seems to point out the true mode of marking the 
entrance to a place. 

An arched gateway at the entrance of a place is 
never used with so much apparent propriety as when 
it forms a part of a town or village ; at least it should 
be so flanked by lofty walls as to mark the separation 
between the public and the park and increase the con- 
trast, but when seen in contact with a low park-pale, 
or even an iron palisade, it appears to want connexion: 
it looks too ostentatious for its utility, and I doubt 
whether it would not lessen the pleasure we derive from 
viewing the magnificent Grecian arches at Burlington 
House and at Blenheim if the side walls were lower. 

In recommending the use of an arch, I must guard 
against being misunderstood, by mentioning several 
circumstances which I deem objectionable. 

I St. The arch should not be a mere aperture in a 
single wall, but it should have depth in proportion to 
its breadth. 

2d. It should have some visible and marked con- 
nexion either with a wall or with the town to which it 
belongs, and not appear insulated. 

3d. It should not be placed in so low a situation 
that we may rather see over it than through it. 

4th. Its architecture should correspond with that of 
the house, in style, if not in order; that is, the Grecian 
and Gothic should be kept separate, although the design 
may not be copied from the house. And, 

Lastly. Neither the house should be visible from the 
entrance nor the entrance from the house, if there be 
sufficient distance between them to make the approach 
through a park and not immediately into a court- 
yard; the two last general rules are equally applicable 



Theory and Practice 179 

to every sort of entrance, as well as that through an 
arch, yet there are certain situations where the latter 
cannot be avoided. Of this, an instance occurred in 
Stoke Park, Herefordshire, where the gate and the 
cottage near it were disguised by the portico, repre- 
sented in the following sketch [Fig. 22], which forms 
a pavilion, or covered seat, adjoining to the walk in 
the shrubbery. 

In various situations various expedients have been 
adopted; thus,at Antony, I recommended, near the gate, 
a cottage, over which is a room, to command the fine 
view of the harbour, etc. At St. John's, in the Isle of 
Wight, two cottages covered with flowering creepers 
attract the notice of all who visit the island; and while 
one is a comfortable residence for a family, the other 
consists of a room near the roadside, from whence the 
mind derives peculiar satisfaction in seeing the constant 
succession of visitors who leave their homes in search 
of happiness. In some places the cottage is more con- 
spicuous, by dividing the road to the house from the 
public road, as at Milton; but, in most cases, I have 
endeavoured to conceal the cottage, when it is quite 
solitary, among the trees, only shewing the gate of 
entrance. 

Concerning gates, it may not be improper to mention 
my opinion, with reasons for it. 

I St. As an entrance near a town, I prefer close wooden 
gates, for the sake of privacy, except where the view is 
only into a wood, and not into the open lawn. 

2d. The gates should be of iron, or close boards, if 
hanging to piers of stone, or brick-work ; otherwise an 
open or common field-gate of wood appears mean, or as 
if only a temporary expedient. 



i8o 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



3d. If the gates are of iron, the posts or piers ought 
to be conspicuous, because an iron gate hanging to an 
iron pier of the same colour is almost invisible ; and the 
principal entrance to a park should be so marked that 
no one may mistake it. 

4th. If the entrance-gate be wood, it should, for the 
same reason, be painted white, and its form should rather 
tend to shew its construction than aim at fanciful orna- 
ment of Chinese, or Gothic, for reasons to be explained 
in speaking of decorations. 




Fig. 22. Stoke Park, Herefordshire. 



It is not sufficient that a building should be in just 
proportions with itself; it should bear some relative pro- 
portion to the objects near it. The example given 
[Fig. 22] is the Doric portico at Stoke Park, in Here- 
fordshire, where the size of the building was regulated 
by a large oak and a young plantation near it : had this 
building been more lofty, it would have overpowered 
the young trees by which it is surrounded, and a smaller 



Theory and Practice 



i«i 



building would have appeared diminutive so near to 
the neighbouring large oak; I therefore judged that the 
best rule for the dimensions of the columns was 
rather less than the diameter of the oak, and this, of 
course, determined the whole proportion of the Doric 
portico. 

So prevalent is the taste for what is called Gothic, in the 
neighbourhood of great cities, that we see buildings of 
every description, from the villa to the pig-sty, with little 




Fig. 23. Gothic Cottage. 

pointed arches or battlements, to look like Gothic ; and 
a Gothic dairy is now become as common an appendage 
to a place as were formerly the hermitage, the grotto, or 
the Chinese pavilion. Why the dairy should be Gothic, 
when the house is not so, I cannot understand, unless 
it arises from that great source of bad taste, to introduce 
what is called a pretty thing without any reference to its 
character, situation, or uses. Even in old Gothic cot- 
tages we never see the sharp-pointed arch, but often the 
flat arch of Henry VIII, and perhaps there is no form 
more picturesque for a cottage than buildings of that 



1 82 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

date, especially as their lofty perforated chimneys not 
only contribute to the beauty of the outline, but tend to 
remedy the curse of the poor man's fireside, a smoky 
house [see Fig. 23 J. 

There are few situations in which any building, whether 
of rude materials or highly finished architecture, can be 
properly introduced without some trees near it. Yet the 
summit of a naked brow, commanding views in every di- 
rection, may require a covered seat or pavilion ; for such 
a situation, where an architectural building is proper, 
a circular temple with a dome, such as the temple of the 
Sybils, or that of Tivoli, is best calculated ; but in rude 
scenery, as on a knoll or promontory in a forest, the 
same idea may be preserved in a thatched hovel sup- 
ported by rude trunks of trees ; yet, as the beauty of 
such an object will greatly depend on the vegetation, it 
should be planted with ivy or vines, and other creep- 
ing plants should be encouraged to spread their foliage 
over the thatch. 

The principal view from the house at Blaize Cas- 
tle is along that rich glen of wood through which the 
approach has been made, as already described : in this 
view, the castle, although perfectly in harmony with 
the solemn dignity of the surrounding woods, increases 
rather than relieves that apparent solitude which is too 
sombre for the character of a villa. 

Some object was wanting to enliven the scenery : 
a temple, or a pavilion, in this situation, would have 
reflected light, and formed a contrast with the dark 
woods; but such a building would not have appeared 
to be inhabited ; this cottage [Plate xvi] therefore 
derives its chief beautyfrom that which cannot easily be 
expressed by painting — the ideas of motion, animation, 



Theory and Practice 183 

and inhabitancy, contrasted with those of stillness and 
solitude. Its form is meant to be humble, without 
meanness; it is and appears the habitation of a labourer 
who has the care of the neighbouring woods ; its sim- 
plicity is the effect of art, not of neglect or accident ; 
it seems to belong to the mansion, and to the more 
conspicuous tower, without affecting to imitate the 
character of either. 

The propensity for imitation, especially where no 
great trouble or expense is incurred, has made treillage 
ornaments so common that some observations con- 
cerning them may be expected in this work, especially 
as 1 believe Tmay have contributed originally to their 
introduction ; but I little thought how far this flimsy 
ornament might be misapplied. 

The treillages of Versailles and Fontainebleau were 
of substantial carpentry, preserving architectural pro- 
portions, in which plants were confined and clipped to 
form a sort of vegetable and architectural berceau or 
cabinet de verdure ; these being made of strong wood 
and painted were more costly and more durable ; and 
as they only formed a frame for the plants, they might 
perish without injuring the forms of these leafy build- 
ings ; but the English treillage is made of such slight 
materials and so slightly put together that they can 
hardly outlive the season for which they are erected. 
This, however, is no objection where they are used in 
flower-gardens, or where they are merely to be consid- 
ered as garden-sticks supporting plants ; but when 
added to architectural houses and made the supporters 
of a heavy roof or even a canvas awning, it looks as 
if the taste of the country were verging to its decline, 
since shade might be obtained by the same awning 



184 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

supported by iron, if architectural forms and projec- 
tions are to be despised or discarded. 

I should therefore suppose that no treill age ought to 
be introduced except in situations where creeping plants 
may be fastened to the framing, which should be stout 
in proportion to its height or its intentions: it is a com- 
mon mistake to suppose a thing will look light by being 
slender ; if it be not equal to its office by its apparent 
substance, it will look weak, not light; but the lattice- 
work is supposed to support nothing, and may there- 
fore be of any dimensions, and, being always painted, it 
will be invisible at a distance. 

I could wish, in speaking of architecture, if the use 
of language would admit of such distinction, to make 
a difference between the words ornament and decora- 
tion. The former should include every enrichment bear- 
ing the semblance of utility ; the latter is supposed to 
have no relation whatever to the uses or construction of 
the building; thus, for instance, a house may answer all 
the purposes of habitation without a column, a pilaster, 
an entablature, a pediment, a dome, an arcade, or a balus- 
trade, which I call the external ornaments of Grecian 
architecture. I include under the word decorations — 
statues, vases, basso-relievos, sculpture, etc., which have 
no use but as additional enrichments to the ornaments 
of architecture; on the contrary, where these decorations 
are applied to plain buildings without ornaments, they 
are marks of bad taste. 

The ornaments of architecture must be correct in 
design, since no degree of costliness in their materials 
or their workmanship can compensate for any defect in 
proportion, order, or disposition. The eye of good taste 
will be equally offended with columns too large or too 



Theory AND Practice 185 

small, too near or too far apart; in short, with every devi- 
ation from the established rules of the respective orders, 
whether such column be composed of marble, of stone, 
or of plastered brick-work, the costliness of the material 
makes no difference in the design. But this is not the 
case with decorations. The cheapness and facility with 
which good designs may be multiplied in papier mache 
or putty composition have encouraged bad taste in the 
lavish profusion of tawdry embellishment. 

This consideration leads me to assert that every species 
of-enrichment or decoration ought to be costly, either in 
its materials or in its workmanship : and if we attend to 
the common opinion of all, except children and savages, 
we shall find that no real value is attached to any deco- 
ration, except upon this principle ; on the contrary, it 
becomes contemptible in proportion as it affects to seem 
what it is not. 

The idea of costliness in ornament is increased by its 
rarity, or, rather, by its being used only where it is most 
conspicuous, and this sort of economy is observable even 
in the works of nature ; for instance, the most beautiful 
coloured feathers of birds are on the surface, while those 
for use, rather than for shew, are generally of a dirty 
brown; it may also be observed that those butterflies 
or moths, whose wings are ornamented on the under 
side, generally bear them erect, while those which have 
the upper side most beautiful generally spread them 
flat. The same remark may be extended to all the vege- 
table tribe; every flower and every leaf has one side 
more ornamented, more glossy, more vivid, or more 
highly finished than the other, and this is always the 
side presented to the eye. Hence we are taught, by the 
example of nature, not to lavish decorations where they 
cannot generally be seen. 



1 86 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

While treating on the subject of ornaments and deco- 
rations, I must not omit to mention colours, since im- 
proper colouring may destroy the intended effect of the 
most correct design and render ridiculous what would 
otherwise be beautiful. Both the form and the colour of 
a small house in Langley Park rendered it an object 
unworthy of its situation ; yet, from peculiar circum- 
stances, it was not deemed advisable either to remove it 
or to hide it by plantations. I therefore recommended 
a Doric portico to cover the front ; and thus a building 
formerly unsightly, because out of character with the 
park, became its brightest ornament, doing honour to 
the taste and feelings of the noble proprietor, who pre- 
served the house for having been a favourite retreat 
of his mother, and which, thus ornamented, may be 
considered as a temple sacred to filial piety. 

In the following instances there is something more 
than harmony of colours ; there is an association from 
habit, which causes part of our pleasure or disgust. 

A compact red house displeases from the meanness 
of its materials, because we suppose it to be of common 
red bricks, although it may perhaps be of the red stone 
of Herefordshire. 

On the contrary, a large pile of red buildings is not 
so displeasing; witness the houses of Cobham,Glemham, 
etc., and the royal palaces of St. James's, Hampton 
Court, Kensington, etc.; but perhaps the weather-stains 
of time may have contributed more than the quantity 
to reconcile us to the colour of these large masses. 

Lime-whitened houses offend the eye, partly from the 
violent glare and partly from the associated meanness 
of a lath and plaster building, but if a little black and 
yellow be mixed with the lime, the resemblance to the 
colour of stone satisfies the eye almost as much as if it 



Theory and Practice 187 

were built of the most costly materials ; witness Wood- 
ley, Babworth, Taplow, etc. 

To produce effect by difference of colour in build- 
ings, such as red and yellow bricks, black and white 
flints, or even edging brick-work with dressings of stone, 
is the poor expedient of the mere bricklayer ; the same 
may be observed of that paltry taste for pointing the 
joints of brick-work to render them more conspicuous, 
and, of course, more offensive. 

As a general principle I should assert that no ex- 
ternal effect or light and shade on a building ought to 
be attempted, except by such projections or recesses as 
will naturally produce them, since every effect produced 
by colour is a trick or sham expedient ; and on the same 
principle a recess in the wall is preferable to a painted 
window, unless it is actually glazed. 

With respect to the colour of sashes and window- 
frames, I think they may be thus determined with pro- 
priety, first observing that from the inside of the room 
the landscape looks better through bars of a dark 
colour ; but on the outside, in small cottages, they may 
be green, because it is a degree of ornament not incom- 
patible with the circumstances of the persons supposed 
to inhabit them, and even in such small houses as may 
be deemed cottages, the same colour may be proper. 
But in proportion as it approaches to a mansion, it 
should not derive its decoration from so insignificant 
an expedient as colour, and, therefore, to a gentleman's 
house the outside of the sashes should be white, whether 
they be of mahogany, of oak, or of deal, because, 
externally, the glass is fastened by a substance which 
must be painted, and the modern sash-frames are so 
light that unless we see the bars the houses appear at 
a distance unfinished and as having no windows. In 



1 88 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

palaces or houses of the highest description, the sash- 
frames should be gilt, as at Holkham, Wentworth, etc. 
The effect of gold in such situations can hardly be 
imagined by those who have never observed it; and 
even at Thoresby, where the house is of red brick, the 
gilding of the sashes has wonderfully improved its 
importance. 

There is a circumstance with respect to gold and 
gilding, of which few are aware who have not studied 
the subject. The colour of gold, like its material, seems 
to remove all difficulties and makes everything pleas- 
ing ; this is evident on viewing a finely coloured picture 
on a crimson hanging, with or without a gold frame ; 
two discordant colours may be rendered more harmo- 
nious by the intervention of gilding; it is never tawdry 
or glaring, the yellow light catches on a very small 
part of its surface, while the brown shadows melt into 
the adjoining colours, and form a quiet tint, never 
offensive : gold ornament may be applied to every col- 
our and every shade, and is equally brilliant, whether 
in contact with black or white. All ornaments of gold 
should be more plain and simple than those of silver; 
not only because the costliness of the material renders 
the costliness of workmanship less necessary, but be- 
cause the carved or enriched parts reflect very little 
light or brilliancy, compared with those that are plain. 

On the contrary, in silver ornaments, if the surface 
be too plain, we annex the ideas of tin or pewter, and 
it is only by the richness or the embossing that its 
intrinsic value becomes apparent. These remarks are 
applicable to gold and silver plate,'*° as well as to every 
species of ornament in which those metals can be used. 
Since the improvement in the manufactory of cast-iron 
has brought that material into more frequent use, it 



Theory and Practice 189 

may not be improper to mention something concerning 
the colour it ought to be painted. Its natural colour, 
after it is exposed to wet, is that of rusty iron, and the 
colour of rust indicates decay ; when painted of a slate 
colour it resembles lead, which is an inferior metal to 
iron ; and if white or green, it resembles wood : but 
if we wish it to resemble metal, and not appear of an 
inferior kind, a powdering of copper or gold dust on 
a green ground makes a bronze, and perhaps it is the 
best colour for all ornamental rails of iron. In a cast- 
iron bridge at Whitton the effect of this bronze colour, 
mixed with gilding, is admirable ; and for the hand- 
rails of staircases it is peculiarly appropriate. 

With respect to wooden fences or rails it is hardly 
necessary to say that the less they are seen the better ; 
and therefore a dark, or, as it is called, an invisible 
green, for those intended to be concealed, is the proper 
colour; perhaps there can hardly be produced a more 
striking example of the truth, " that whatever is cheap 
is improper for decorations," than the garish ostentation 
of white paint, with which, for a few shillings, a whole 
country may be disfigured by milk-white gates, posts, 
and rails. 



Chapter XII 

Architecture and Gardening inseparable — Forms 
and Arrangements of Different Eras — Change in 
Customs alters Uses of Rooms 



IT has been objected to my predecessor, Mr. Brown, 
that he fancied himself an architect. The many- 
good houses built under his direction prove him to 
have been no mean proficient in an art, the practice 
of which he found, from experience, to be inseparable 
from landscape gardening. He had not early studied 
those necessary but inferior branches of architecture, 
better known, perhaps, to the practical carpenter 
than to Paliadio himself, yet, from his access to the 
principal palaces of this country, and his intercourse 
with men of genius and science, added to his natural 
quickness of perception and his habitual correctness 
of observation, he became acquainted with the higher 
requisites of the art relating to form, to proportion, 
to character, and, above all, to arrangement.*' 

These branches of architecture are attainable without 
much early practice, as we have seen exemplified in the 
designs of certain noblemen, who, like Lord Burling- 
ton, had given their attention to this study. A know- 
ledge of arrangement or disposition is, of all others, 
the most useful ; and this must extend to external 
appendages as well as to internal accommodation. 

This knowledge cannot be acquired without ob- 
serving and comparing various houses under various 
circumstances ; not occasionally only, but the architect 



Theory and Practice 191 

must be in the habit of Hving much in the country and 
with the persons for whom he is to build, by which 
alone he can know their various wants with respect to 
comfort as well as to appearance; otherwise he will, 
like an ordinary builder, be satisfied in shewing his 
skill by compressing the whole of his house and offices 
under one compact roof, without considering aspect, 
views, approaches, gardens, or even the shape of the 
ground on which the house is to be built. 
- It is impossible to fix or describe the situation appli- 
cable to a house without at the same time describing 
the sort of house applicable to the situation. This is 
so evident that it scarcely requires to be pointed out ; 
yet I have often witnessed the absurdity of designs for 
a house where the builder had never seen the situation. 
I have, therefore, long been compelled to make archi- 
tecture a branch of my own profession. 

Having occasionally observed the various modes by 
which large houses and their appendages have been 
connected at various periods. It may not be uninter- 
esting if I attempt to describe them by reference to the 
annexed plans. [Plate xvii.J 

No. I. The earliest form of houses, or, rather, of 
palaces, in the country, prior to the reign of Elizabeth, 
consisted of apartments built round a large square court. 
These were formerly either castles or abbeys, and often 
received all their light from the inner courts ; but, 
when afterwards converted into habitations, windows 
were opened on the outside of the building. The views 
from a window were of little consequence at a time 
when glass was hardly transparent, and in many of the 
ancient castles the small lozenge panes were glazed 
with coloured glass or painted with the armorial bear- 
ings, which admitted light without any prospect. 



192 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Perhaps there is no form better calculated for con- 
venience of habitation than a house consisting of one 
or more of these courts, provided the dimensions are 
such as to admit free circulation of air, because, in 
such a house, the apartments are all easily connected 
with each other, and may have a passage of communi- 
cation for servants from every part. Of this kind are 
the old palaces at Hampton Court and St. James's, of 
Penshurst and Knowle in Kent, Warwick Castle, and 
various other ancient mansions. 

No. 2. Houses of the next form I consider as of 
later date, although, from the various subsequent alter- 
ations, it is difficult to define their original shapes : 
they seem to have had one side of the quadrangle 
opened, and thus the line of communication being 
cut off, this sort of house becomes less commodious 
in proportion to the length of its projecting sides. Of 
this description were Cobham Hall and Cashiobury, 
to both of which have been judiciously added square 
courts of offices, under the direction of Mr. James 
Wyatt. 

No. 3 is a form introduced in the reign of James I, 
with the quadrangle so small that it is often damp 
and dark ; of this kind are Crewe, Hill Hall, Gay- 
hurst, and Culford ; although the latter has been mod- 
ernised and changed to the form, No. 7. Houses of 
this shape may sometimes be greatly improved by 
covering the inner court entirely, and converting it 
into a hall of communication ; this I advised at Sarsden, 
a house of later date. The offices are generally attached 
to the side of these houses. In mansions of the fore- 
going three descriptions, a mixture of Grecian with 
Gothic is often observed, particularly in those repaired 
by Inigo Jones. 





n 



i^i 




$ 



ij 




*k?S^-' 



i^SS^ 




Plate XVII. Plans of houses of various dates 



Theory and Practice 193 

No. 4, the form next in succession, was of the date 
of WilHam III and George I, and has been com- 
monly called an H, or half H. This kind of house is 
often rendered very inconvenient by the centre being 
one great hall, which breaks the connexion of apart- 
ments abovestairs. It is also further objectionable because 
it is a mere single house in the centre and must have 
offices attached on one side : of this description are 
Stoke Park, Langley, Glemham Hall, Dullingham, 
and Condover. 

No. 5. When the Italian or Grecian architecture 
became more general, a greater display of facade was 
introduced than the body of the house required ; 
the offices and appendages were, therefore, made in 
wings to extend the design, as at Wentworth House, 
Wimpole, Attingham, Dyrham Park, and numerous 
others. 

A house on this plan, if it commands only one view, 
may be less objectionable ; but when applied to situa- 
tions where the windows are to look in opposite direc- 
tions, it becomes very inconvenient, because the offices 
want that uninterrupted communication which is abso- 
lutely necessary to the comfort of a dwelling. After the 
views from the windows became an object of considera- 
tion, it was not deemed sufficient to preserve the views 
to the north and to the south, but even the views to 
the east and to the west were attempted to be preserved, 
and this introduced the plan. No. 6. 

No. 6 has wings, not in the same line with the 
house, but receding from it, which, of course, destroy 
the symmetry proposed by wings, unless the whole be 
viewed from one particular point in the centre; of this 
form are Merley, Newton Park, Normanton, Lathom 
House, etc. The houses built by Paine and Leadbetter 



194 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

are frequent instances of want of comfort in the two 
latter forms. 

No. 7 is a form so generally adopted in modern 
houses that I will not mention any particular instances, 
especially as they are the works of living architects; 
yet I hope I shall be pardoned in also making some 
observations on their construction. 

This last invented form consists in a compact square 
house, with three fronts, and to the back are attached 
offices, forming a very long range of buildings, courts, 
walls, etc., supposed to be hid by plantation. These I have 
been often required to hide by planting, while, in fact, 
during the lives of the architect and the proprietor, 
the buildings can never be concealed, and in the lives 
of their successors the trees must be cut down to give 
a free circulation of air to the buildings. 

Notwithstanding the danger of giving offence, when 
I am obliged to speak of the works of living artists, 
I shall venture to point out some objections to the 
compact form. No. 7, as applied to a large mansion, 
which have not an equal weight when applied to a villa 
or a house near the city, where land is valued by the 
foot, and not by the acre ; for however ingenious 
it may be in such places to compress a large house 
within a small compass, or to cover under the same roof 
a great number of rooms, yet a mansion in a park 
does not require such management or warrant such 
economy of space. 

Of all the forms which can be adopted, there is none 
so insignificant as a cube, because, however large it may 
be, the eye can never be struck with its length, its depth, 
or its height, these being all equal ; and the same quan- 
tity of building which is often sunk underground, raised 
in the air, or concealed in plantation, might have been 



Theory and Practice 195 

extended, to appear four times as large, with less expense 
and more internal convenience. 

A house in the country is so different from a house 
in town that I never could see any good reason for 
disposing the living-rooms abovestairs. It may per- 
haps be said that the views are more perfect from the 
higher level, but the same degree of elevation may be 
obtained by building the cellars aboveground, and 
afterwards raising the earth above them, as I advised 
at Donnington and Blaize Castle; and surely the in- 
convenience of an external staircase can scarcely be 
compensated by any improvement of the views. To 
counteract this error in modern houses, I have, in 
some instances, raised the earth to the principal floor; 
and, in others, where the architecture would not allow 
this expedient, I have advised a gallery to be added, as 
at Hooton and Higham Hill. 

Few subjects having occurred in which I have so fully 
discussed the proper situation for a house and all its 
appendages as that of Michel Grove, I shall subjoin 
the following extract from that Red Book : 

There is no circumstance connected with my pro- 
fession in which I find more error of judgement than in 
selecting the situation for a house, yet it is a subject 
every one fancies easy to determine. Not only visitors 
and men of taste fall into this error, but the carpenter, 
the land-steward, or the nurseryman feels himself equally 
competent to pronounce on this subject. No sooner 
has he discovered a spot commanding an extensive 
prospect than he immediately pronounces that spot the 
true situation for a house ; as if the only use of a man- 
sion, like that of a prospect-tower, was to look out of 
the windows/* 



196 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

After long experiencing the many inconveniences to 
which lofty situations are exposed ; after frequently wit- 
nessing the repentance and vexation of those who have 
hastily made choice of such situations, under the flatter- 
ing circumstances of a clear atmosphere and brilliant 
sky ; after observing how willingly they would exchange 
prospect for shade and shelter, and, after vainly looking 
forward to the effect of future groves, I am convinced 
that it is better to decide the situation of a house when 
the weather is unfavourable to distant prospects, and 
when the judgement may be able to give its due weight 
to every circumstance which ought to be considered in 
so material an object, that the comforts of habitation 
may not be sacrificed to the fascinating glare of a 
summer's day. From these considerations, I do not 
hesitate to assert that if no house existed at Michel 
Grove, the sheltered situation of the present magnifi- 
cent and singular mansion [Plate xviii] is greatly to be 
preferred to any spot that could be found on the hill, 
every part of which is more or less exposed to the 
force of the winds from the southwest. I shall, there- 
fore, inquire into the character of the present house, and 
consider how far the old mansion may be rendered con- 
venient and adapted to modern comforts. 

There are few old mansions in England which have 
not been either castles or monasteries altered into houses, 
but there is no trace of this house ever having been 
either ; and, indeed, its situation in a dry valley is unlike 
that of any abbey, and it is so immediately commanded 
by the surrounding hills that it never could have been 
a castle or place of defence. 

The proposed addition of a drawing-room, an ante- 
room, and an eating-room of large dimensions will alter 
those relative proportions now so pleasing. It is not, 



Theory and Practice 197 

therefore, with a view of improving, but with that of 
doing as little injury as possible to its appearance that 
I venture to suggest the additions in the annexed 
sketch ; because the terrace will tend to preserve the 
apparent height, which the additions to the east tend 
to destroy. 

The present style of living in the country is so 
different from that of former times that there are few 
houses of ancient date which would be habitable, with- 
out great alterations and additions. Such, indeed, is 
the constant fluctuation in the habits and customs of 
mankind, and so great the change in the luxuries, the 
comforts, and even the wants of a more refined people, 
that it is, in these times, impossible to live in the bar- 
onial castle, the secularized abbey, or even in the more 
modern palaces, built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
preserving all the apartments to their original uses. 

The chief rooms formerly required in a house of that 
date were : 

The Hall, for the entertainment of friends and vas- 
sals; a large and lofty room, having the floor at one end 
raised above the common level, as at present in the halls 
of our colleges ; this was to mark some distinction in 
the different ranks of the guests. 

The next large room required was a Gallery, for the 
reception of company in a morning, for dancing in the 
evening, and for the exercise of the family within doors. 
Very few books were then in use ; and, instead of the 
newspapers and pamphlets of the present day, the gen- 
eral information was collected in conversations held in 
those long galleries, which had large recesses, or bays, 
sometimes called bowre-windows, and now bow-win- 
dows; into which some of the company would occa- 
sionally withdraw, for conversation of a more private 



198 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

nature, as we frequently read in the " Memoires de 
Sully," etc. 

But the apartment, of all others, which was deemed 
indispensable in former times, and in which the mag- 
nificence of the proprietor was greatly displayed, was 
the Chapel. 

The other apartments were one or more small par- 
lours, for the use of the ladies and their female attend- 
ants, in which they carried on their various works of 
embroidery, etc., and, instead of the present dressing- 
room and sitting-rooms, which are added to each mod- 
ern bedroom, there was generally a small closet to each, 
with perhaps an oriel window for private morning de- 
votions. 

After thus mentioning the uses of ancient apartments, 
it is necessary to enumerate those additions which mod- 
ern life requires, ist. The eating-room, which does not 
exactly correspond with the ancient hall, because it is no 
longer the fashion to dine in public; 2d, the library, 
into which the gallery may sometimes be changed with 
propriety; 3d, the drawing-room, or saloon; 4th, the 
music-room ; 5th, the billiard-room ; 6th, the conserv- 
atory attached to the house ; and, lastly, the boudoirs, 
wardrobes, hot and cold baths, etc., which are all 
modern appendages, unknown in Queen Elizabeth's 
days. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to pre- 
serve the ancient style of a mansion without considerable 
additions. For this reason we see few specimens of 
Gothic buildings which have not been mixed and cor- 
rupted with the architecture of various dates ; and whilst 
every casual observer may be struck with the incon- 
gruity of mixing the Grecian with the Gothic styles, 
yet the nice antiquarian alone discovers, by the contour 
of a moulding, or the shape of a battlement, that mix- 



Theory and Practice 199 

ture of the castle and abbey Gothic, which is equally 
incorrect with respect to their different dates and pur- 
poses. 

The view of this house will, I hope, justify my anxiety 
to preserve it, as far as may be consistent with modern 
habitation: for although it can neither be deemed a cas- 
tle, an abbey, or a house of any Gothic character with 
which we are acquainted, yet its form is singularly pic- 
turesque ; and the plate shews the effect of removing the 
present road, walls, and stables, which would obstruct 
the*view from the new apartments. 

In determining the situation for a large house in the 
country, there are other circumstances to be considered 
besides the offices and appendages immediately con- 
tiguous. These have so often occurred that I have 
' established, in imagination, certain positions for each, 
which I have never found so capable of being realized 
as at Michel Grove. 

I would place the house with its principal front to- 
wards the south or southeast. 

I would build the offices behind the house; but, as 
they occupy much more space, they will, of course, 
spread wider than the front. 

I would place the stables near the offices. 

I would place the kitchen-garden near the stables. 

I would put the home-farm buildings at rather a 
greater distance from the house ; but these several ob- 
jects should be so connected by back roads as to be 
easily accessible. 

I would bring the park to the very front of the 
house. 

I would keep the farm, or land in tillage, whether 
for use or for experiment, behind the house. 



200 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

I would make the dressed pleasure-ground, to the 
right and left of the house, in plantations which would 
screen the unsightly appendages, and form the natural 
division between the park and the farm, with walks 
communicating to the garden and the farm. 

It will be found that these are exactly the positions 
of all the appendages at Michel Grove. But, in sup- 
port of my opinion, it may be proper to give some 
reasons for the choice of these general positions. 

I. The aspect of a house requires the first consid- 
eration, since no beauty of prospect can compensate 
for the cold exposure to the north, the glaring blaze of 
a setting sun, or the frequent boisterous winds and rains 
from the west and southwest ; while, in a southern 
aspect, the sun is too high to be troublesome in sum- 
mer, and during the winter it is seldom an unwelcome 
visitant in the climate of England. 

a, 3. It can hardly be necessary to enumerate the 
advantages of placing the offices near and stables at no 
great distance from the house. 

4. The many interesting circumstances that lead us 
into a kitchen-garden, the many inconveniences which 
I have witnessed from the removal of old gardens to 
a distance, and the many instances in which I have been 
desired to bring them back to their original situations, 
have led me to conclude that a kitchen-garden cannot 
be too near, if it be not seen from the house. 

5. So much of the comfort of a country residence 
depends on the produce of its home-farm that even if 
the proprietor of the mansion should have no pleasure 
in the fashionable experiments in husbandry, yet a farm, 
with all its appendages, is Indispensable : but when 
this is considered as an object of profit, the gentleman- 
farmer commonly mistakes his aims ; and as an object 



Theory and Practice 201 

of ornament, I hope the good taste of the country will 
never confound the character of a park with that of 
a farm. 

To every dwelling there must belong certain un- 
sightly premises which can never be properly orna- 
mental, such as yards for coal, wood, linen, etc., and 
these are more than doubled when the farmhouse is 
contiguous ; for this reason I am of opinion that the 
farming premises should be at a greater distance than 
the kitchen-garden or the stables, which have a more 
natural connexion with each other. 

The small pool in front of the house has been pur- 
posely left, not as an object of beauty in itself, but as 
the source of great beauty to the scenery ; for in the 
dry valleys of Sussex such a pond, however small, will 
invite the deer and cattle to frequent the lawn in front of 
the house, and add to the view, motion, and animation. 

Those who only remember the former approaches 
to this house, over lofty downs, with a dangerous road 
to descend, will hardly believe that this venerable man- 
sion is not situated in the bottom, but at the extremity 
of a valley; for in reality the house is on the side of 
a hill, and by the proposed line of approach it will 
appear that it actually stands on a considerable emi- 
nence, the road ascending along the whole course of 
the valley for more than a mile." 

A house extended in length may be objectionable in 
many situations, but when built on the side of a hill, 
if the ground rises boldly behind it, the objection to it 
as a single house is removed. 

Where a house, like that at Garnons, by its situa- 
tion and southern aspect, will constantly be a marked 
feature from the surrounding country, presenting only 



202 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



one front embosomed in wood, that front should be so 
extended as to distinguish the site of the mansion with 
adequate importance. 

In such a situation it would be difficult to produce 
the same greatness of character by a regular Grecian 
edifice; that will be effected by the irregularity of out- 
line in the proposed house, offices, and stables ; and 
in defence of this picturesque style I shall take the 
liberty to transcribe, in a note,'** the very judicious 
remarks of R. L. Girardin, Viscomte d'Ermenonville. 

A plan of the house proposed for this situation is 
added [Fig. 24], to shew how conveniently the com- 




Fig. 24. Examples of a plan for an extended front on the steep side of a hill. 

forts of modern habitations may be adapted to an- 
cient magnificence ; and I rejoice In observing that 
many large houses are at this time building, or alter- 
ing, in this irregular style, under the direction of one 
of our most eminent architects. I may mention those of 
Cashiobury and Wickham Market, which disdain the 
spruce affectation of symmetry so fatal to the Gothic 
character. 

When a house, as In the foregoing instance. Is to be 
built on the side of a hill or on an inclined plane, it Is 
hardly possible to dispose it In any other form than 
that of an extended front : but this supposes a certain 



Theory and Practice 203 

degree of property to belong to the house, or it is 
apt to appear too large for the annexed estate. This 
objection is, however, less forcible in a villa than in 
a mansion ; yet even a villa which covers too much of 
its own field or lawn partakes more of ostentation than 
good taste. 

A field of a few acres, called Brentry Hill, near 
Bristol, commands a most pleasing and extensive 
view. In the foreground are the rich woods of King's 
W^ton and Blaize Castle, with the picturesque assem- 




Fig. 25. Villa at Brentry Hill, shewing specimens of economy with compactness 
adapted to its situation, character, and uses. 

blage of gardens and villas in Henbury and Westbury; 
beyond which are the Severn and Bristol Channel, and 
the prospect is bounded by the mountains of South 
Wales. This view is towards the west, and I have 
generally observed that the finest prospects in England 
are all towards this point.'*^ Yet this, of all aspects, is 
the most unpleasant for a house ; it was not, therefore, 
advisable to give an extended front in this direction, 
yet it would have been unpardonable not to have 
taken advantage of so fine a prospect. 

A compact plan often demands more trouble and 



204 



The Art of Landscape Gardening 



contrivance than a design for a palace, in which the 
rooms may be so numerous that different apartments 
may be provided for summer and for winter use; but 
where compactness and economy are studied, some 
contrivance is necessary to avail ourselves of views and 
aspects, without sacrificing convenience and relative 
fitness to the beauty of the prospect. 




Fig. 26. Ground-plan of Villa at Brentry Hill, 
a. Breakfast-room ; A, drawing-room, opening, with folding doors, to a small library; c, eating- 
room ; d, kitchen ; «, kitchen court ; /, drying-ground ; g, part of the kitchen-garden ; h, stable 
court 

Under this restraint perhaps few houses have been 
built with more attention to the situation and circum- 
stances of the place than the villa at Brentry [Figs. 25 
and 26]. The eating-room is to the north, with one 
window towards the prospect, which may be opened or 
shut out by Venetian blinds at pleasure. The break- 
fast-room is towards the south, and the drawing-room 
towards the prospect. 

Modern habits have altered the uses of a drawing- 



Theory and Practice 205 

room; formerly, the best room in the house was opened 
only a few days in each year, where the guests sat in 
a formal circle, but now the largest and best room 
in a gentleman's house is that most frequented and 
inhabited: it is filled with books, fnusical instruments, 
tables of every description, and whatever can contribute 
to the comfort or amusement of the guests, who 
form themselves into groups at different parts of the 
room ; and in winter, by the help of two fireplaces, 
the restraint and formality of the circle is done away. 

This has been often happily effected in old houses 
by laying two rooms together, preserving the fireplaces 
in their original situations, without regard to correspond- 
ence in size or place. But two fires not being wanted in 
summer, a provision is made in this villa to preserve 
an additional window towards the fine prospect at that 
season of the year ; and the panel which ornaments the 
end of the room may be removed in winter, when the 
window will be less desirable than a fireplace ; thus the 
same room will preserve, in every season, its advant- 
ages of aspects and of views, while its elegance may be 
retained without increasing the number of rooms for 
different purposes. This attention to the wants of dif- 
ferent seasons has been too little studied in this country, 
whilst in France almost every large house has its gar- 
^on tapissier^ whose business it is to change the furniture 
of the apartments for summer and winter. Those who 
have compared the fitting-up of rooms in France with 
that of any other country of Europe must, doubtless, 
give the preference to French taste, as far as it relates 
to the union of internal magnificence and comfort; but 
those architects who copy both the inside and outside 
of Italian houses should at least provide for such occa- 
sional alterations as our climate may require. 



2o6 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

Another circumstance may be mentioned, in which 
economy has been consulted at this small villa. More 
rooms are generally required on the chamber than on 
the ground floor; yet, except the kitchen, there is no 
part of a house which ought properly to be so lofty as 
the principal rooms ; instead, therefore, of increasing the 
quantity of offices, by what a witty author calls "turn- 
ing the kitchen out of doors for smelling of victuals," 
this offence is here avoided by the external passage of 
communication. 

The operations of landscape gardening have often 
been classed under the general term of improvement; 
but there are three distinct species. The first relates 
to places where the grounds are altered, and adapted to 
a house already existing; the second to those where the 
houses, by additions, having changed their original 
character or aspect, renders it necessary to make alter- 
ations in the ground also ; the third includes those places 
where no house previously exists, and where the entire 
plan of the house, appendages, and grounds has some- 
times been called a creation. Of the first kind it is 
needless to enumerate examples. Among the second 
may be mentioned those in which the entrance of the 
house being changed, new rooms added, or barns, sta- 
bles, and kitchen-gardens removed, new arrangements 
have taken place, as at Abington Hall, Clayberry, 
Wallhall, West-Coker, Betchworth, Highlands, 
Brandsbury, Holwood, etc. Of those places which 
may be called creations, the number is necessarily 
small, yet I may refer to the following examples. In 
some, where new houses were built, I was consulted by 
the respective architects on the situation and append- 
ages ; as at Bracondale, Milton House, Donnington, 
Buckminster, Courteen Hall, Bank Farm, Chilton 



Theory and Practice 



207 



Lodge, Dulwich Casina, Holme Park, Streatham, The 
Grove, Southgate, Luscombe, etc. In others, I gave 
general plans for the whole, with the assistance of my 
son only in the architectural department, as at Brentry 
Hill, Cobham Bank, Organ Hall, Stapleton, Stratton 
Park, Scarrisbrick, Panshanger, Bayham, etc. 



Chapter XIII 

Formation of a new Place — Application of Garden- 
ing and Architecture — Characteristic Architecture 
— How far it should prevail internally 



THE necessity of uniting architecture and land- 
scape gardening is so strongly elucidated in the 
Red Book of Bayham that I gladly avail myself of the 
permission of its noble possessor to insert the following 
observations ; but as the ruins of Bayham Abbey are 
generally known to those who frequent Tunbridge 
Wells, it is necessary to premise that the situation 
proposed for a new house is very different from that 
of the abbey. 

No place concerning which 1 have had the honour 
to be consulted possesses greater variety of water, with 
such difference of character as seldom occurs within 
the limits of the same estate. The water near the 
abbey, now intersecting the meadow in various chan- 
nels, should be brought together into one river, wind- 
ing through the valley in a natural course : this may 
be so managed as to drain the land while it improves 
the scenery ; and I suppose the whole of this valley 
to be a more highly dressed lawn, fed by sheep and 
cattle, but without deer. 

Above this natural division the water will assume 
a bolder character ; that of a lake or a broad river, filling 
the entire bottom of the valley, between two wooded 
shores, and dashing the foot of that steep bank on 
which the mansion is proposed to be erected. This 



Theory and Practice 209 

valley is so formed by nature that an inconsiderable 
dam will cause a lake or rather broad river of great 
apparent extent : for when 1 describe water, I never 
estimate its effects by the number of acres it may cover, 
but by its form, its continuity, and the facility with 
which its termination is concealed. 

Where a place is rather to be formed than improved, 
that is, where no mansion already exists, the choice 
of situation for the house will in some measure depend 
on the purpose for which it is intended and the char- 
acter it ought to assume : thus a mansion, a villa, and 
a sporting-seat require very different adaptation of the 
same principles, if not a variation in the principles 
themselves. The purpose for which the house at Bay- 
ham is intended must decide its character: it is not 
to be considered as a small villa, liable to change its 
proprietor, as good or ill success prevails, but as the 
established mansion of an English nobleman's family. 
Its character, therefore, should be that of greatness 
and of durability. The park should be a forest, the 
estate a domain, the house a palace. Now, since magni- 
ficence and compactness are as diametrically opposite 
to each other as extension and contraction, so neither 
the extended scale of the country nor the style nor the 
character of the place will admit of a compact house. 

In determining effects, it is not sufficient to consider 
merely the size of the building; but as all objects 
appear great or small only by comparison, it is also 
necessary to consider the size and character of those by 
which this mansion will be accompanied. 

The surrounding scenery of Bayham must influence 
the character of the house ; we must therefore consider 
what style of architecture will here be most appro- 
priate. There has ever appeared to me something 



•2IO The Art of Landscape Gardening 

wrong or misunderstood in the manner of adapting 
Grecian architecture to our large mansions in the 
country: our professors, having studied from models 
in a different climate, often forget the difference of 
circumstances and shew their classic taste, like those 
who correctly quote the words, but misapply the sense 
of an author. The most striking feature of Grecian 
architecture is a portico, and this, when it forms part 
of a temple or a church, may be applied with pro- 
priety and grandeur ; but when added to a large house 
and intersected by two or three rows of windows, it is 
evidently what, in French, is called an applique^ some- 
thing added, an afterthought ; and it has but too often 
the appearance of a Grecian temple affixed to an English 
cotton-mill. 

There is also another circumstance belonging to 
Grecian architecture, viz. symmetry, or an exact corre- 
spondence of the sides with each other. Symmetry 
appears to constitute a part of that love of order so 
natural to man; the first idea of a child, in drawing 
a house, is to make the windows correspond, and 
perhaps to add two correspondent wings. 

There are, however, some situations where great 
magnificence and convenience are the result of a 
building of this description; yet it can only be the 
case where the house is so large that one of the wings 
may contain a complete suite of private apartments, 
connected with the house by a gallery or library, while 
the other may consist of a conservatory, etc. 

Every one who has observed the symmetrical ele- 
vations scattered round the metropolis, and the small 
houses with wings in the neighbourhood of manufac- 
turing towns, will allow that symmetry so applied is 
apt to degenerate into spruceness ; and of the in- 




i ll 



f 5 a E- H 
S K o a< 



A 3 3 



J? I •" = "3 
S 5 s a g 

I s i I 8 
! ■£■! S g 

* (S g g «2 
K o 1 » J 



2 ? 






I * s t^ 



' £ s 



'< a u A H 



Theory and Practice 211 

convenience of a house, separated from Its offices by 
a long passage (however dignified by the name of col- 
onnade), there cannot surely be a question. There 
is yet another principle which applies materially to 
Bayham, viz. that symmetry makes an extensive build- 
ing look small, while irregularity will, on the contrary, 
make a small building appear large : a symmetrical 
house would, therefore, ill accord with the character 
of the surrounding country. 

Having expressed these objections against the appli- 
cation of Grecian architecture, before I describe any 
other style of house, I shall introduce some remarks 
on a subject which has much engaged my attention, 
viz. the adaptation of buildings not only to the situa- 
tion, character, and circumstances of the scenery, but 
also to the purposes for which they are intended ; this 
I shall call characteristic architecture. 

Although it is obvious that every building ought 
" to tell its own tale," and not to look like anything 
else, yet this principle appears to have been lately too 
often violated : our hospitals resemble palaces, and 
our palaces may be mistaken for hospitals; our modern 
churches look like theatres, and our theatres appear 
like warehouses. In surveying the public buildings 
of the metropolis, we admire St. Luke's Hospital as 
a madhouse, and Newgate as a prison, because they 
both announce their purposes by their appropriate 
appearance, and no stranger has occasion to inquire for 
what uses they are intended. 

From the palace to the cottage, this principle should 
be observed. Whether we take our models from a Gre- 
cian temple or from a Gothic abbey, from a castle or 
from a college, if the building does not look like a house 
and the residence of a nobleman, it will be out of char- 



212 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

acter at Bayham, It may perhaps be objected that we 
must exactly follow the models of the style or date we 
mean to imitate, or else we make a pasticcio or confusion 
of discordant parts. Shall we imitate the thing and for- 
get its application ? No : let us rather observe how, in 
Warwick Castle, and in other great mansions of the 
same character, the proud baronial retreat "of the times 
of old" has been adapted to the purposes of modern 
habitation. Let us preserve the massive strength and 
durability of the castle, and discard the gloom which 
former tyranny and cruelty inspired ; let us preserve 
the light elegance of Gothic abbeys in our chapels, but 
not in our houses, where such large and lofty windows 
are inadmissible ; let us, in short, never forget that we 
are building a house, whether we admire and imitate the 
bold irregular outline of an ancient castle, the elegant 
tracery in the windows of a Gothic church, or the har- 
mony of proportions and the symmetrical beauty of 
a Grecian temple. 

Of the three distinct characters, the Castle, the Abbey, 
and the House-Gothic, the former of these appears best 
calculated for Bayham [Plates xxi and xxiij. Yet, as 
the object is not to build a castle, but a house, it is surely 
allowable to blend with the magnificence of this character 
the advantages of the other two, as well as the elegance, 
the comfort, and the convenience of modern habitation. 
It may be urged that the first purpose of a castle is 
defence ; that of a house, habitation ; but it will surely be 
allowed that something more is required than the mere 
purposes of habitation. An ordinary carpenter may 
build a good room ; a mechanic, rather more ingenious, 
may connect a suite of rooms together, and so arrange 
their several offices and appendages as to make a good 
house, that is, a house sufficient for all the purposes of 



Theory and Practice 



213 



habitation. But an architect will aim at something 
higher ; he will add to the internal convenience, not 
merely external beauty but external propriety and char- 
acter ; he will aim not only to make a design perfect in 
itself but perfect in its application. 

Where the lawn, the woods, the water, the whole 
place, and the general face of the surrounding country 
are on so extensive a scale the only means of preserv- 
ing the same character is by extending the plan of the 
house also. How can this be effected unless we adopt 
the Gothic style of architecture ? In Grecian or modern 
buildings it has been considered an essential part of 
the plan to conceal all the subordinate appendages of 
the mansion, such as the stables, the offices, the garden- 
walls, etc.; and why? Because they neither do nor can 
partake of the character of the house; and the only 
method by which this extension of site is usually ac- 
quired in a Grecian building is by adding wings to the 
house. Thus the same mistaken principle obtains and 
is considered material, for it is a part of the duty of 
these wings to conceal the offices. But if continuity be 
an essential cause of the sublime, if extension be an 
essential cause of magnificence, whatever destroys con- 
tinuity weakens the sublime, and whatever destroys 
extension lessens magnificence; therefore, as the offices 
and courtyards attached to a house are generally five 
times more extensive than the houvse itself, where 
magnificence is the object, why neglect the most effect- 
ual means of creating it ? viz. continuity and extension, 
blended with unity of design and character; or, in other 
words, when it is desirable to take advantage of every 
part of the buildings, why conceal five parts in six of 
them ? 

If the truth of this principle be allowed, I trust the 



214 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

propriety of its application will be obvious; and, for its 
effect, I appeal to the accompanying sketch [Plate xxii] 
where both the actual size of the house and its com- 
parative proportion to the surrounding scenery are 
correctly ascertained. 

However pleasing these representations may appear, 
I should consider myself as having planned a "castle in 
the air," unless it should be proved that this design is 
not only practicable but that it actually contains no more 
building than is absolutely necessary for the purposes 
of modern habitation. By the plan, it appears to con- 
tain : 

A Gothic hall, for the sake of ancient grandeur, but 
leading through a passage lower than the rooms, for the 
sake of not depressing their comparative height. The 
hall and passages should be rather dimly lighted by 
painted glass, to impress a degree of gloom essential 
to grandeur, and to render the entrance into the rooms 
more brilliant and cheerful. 

This, it may be objected, is in character with those 
houses which Gray describes as having 
** Windows that exclude the light. 
And passages that lead to nothing." 

Yet I trust these passages will be found no less useful 
than magnificent; they lead to the several rooms, which 
form a complete suite of apartments, consistingof eating- 
room, breakfast-room, drawing-room, and library. The 
rooms all open by windows to the floor on a terrace, 
which may be enriched with orange-trees and odourif- 
erous flowers, and will form one of the greatest lux- 
uries of modern as well as one of the most magnificent 
features of ancient habitation. 

It now remains for me to shew that I have not sug- 
gested a design more expensive than a house of any 







Plate XXII. Plan of Bavhs 



Theory and Practice 215 

other character, containing the same number of apart- 
ments. The chief difficulty of building arises from the 
want of materials: a house of Portland stone would be 
very expensive; a red-brick house, as Mr. Brown used 
to say, "puts the whole valley in a fever"; a house of 
yellow brick is little better; and the great Lord Mans- 
field often declared that had the front of Kenwood 
been originally covered with Parian marble he should 
have found it less expensive than stucco. Yet one of 
these must be used in any building except a castle; but 
for this the rude stone of the country, lined with bricks, 
or faced with battens, will answer every purpose; be- 
cause the enrichments are few, except to the battle- 
ments and the entrance-tower, which are Surely far less 
expensive than a Grecian portico. 

The attached offices, forming a part of the front, are 
so disposed as to lie perfectly convenient to the prin- 
cipal floor and to the private apartments, while the 
detached offices, the courtyards, and even the garden- 
walls, may be so constructed and arranged as to in- 
crease in dimensions the extent of the castle. This 
unity of design will be extended from the house to the 
water, by the boat-house, the cold-bath, and the walls, 
with steps leading to a bridge, near which the engine- 
house may form a barbican, and contribute to the mag- 
nificent eff^ect of the picture as well as to the general 
congruity of character. 

When we look back a few centuries and compare 
the habits of former times with those of the present, 
we shall be apt to wonder at the presumption of any 
person who shall propose to build a house that may 
suit the next generation. Who, in the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, would have planned a library, a music-room, 
a billiard-room, or a conservatory ? Yet these are now 



2i6 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

deemed essential to comfort and magnificence: perhaps, 
in future ages, new rooms for new purposes will be 
deemed equally necessary. But to a house of perfect 
symmetry these can never be added: yet it is principally 
to these additions, during a long succession of years, 
that we are indebted for the magnificent irregularity 
and splendid intricacy observable in the neighbouring 
palaces of Knowle and Penshurst. Under these circum- 
stances that plan cannot be good which will admit of 
no alteration. 

" Malum consilium est, quod non mutari potest." 
[It is a bad counsel which cannot be changed.] 

But in a house of this irregular character, every sub- 
sequent addition will increase the importance: and if 
I have endeavoured to adopt some of the cumbrous 
magnificence of former times, I trust that no modern 
conveniences or elegances will be unprovided for. 

It has been doubted how far a house, externally 
Gothic,''^ should internally preserve the same character; 
and the most ridiculous fancies have been occasionally 
introduced in libraries and eating-rooms, to make them 
appear of the same date with the towers and battlements 
of a castle, without considering that such rooms are of 
modern invention, and, consequently, the attempt 
becomes an anachronism: perhaps the only rooms of 
a house which can, with propriety, be Gothic, are the 
hall, the chapel, and those long passages which lead 
to the several apartments; and in these the most 
correct detail should be observed. 



Chapter XIV 

Conclusion — Concerning Colour — Difficulty of 
Comparisons betwixt Art and Nature 



THE art of painting has been usually treated 
under four distinct heads, viz. : Composition ; 
Design, or Drawing ; Expression ; and Colouring, — 
each of which may, in some measure, be applied to 
landscape gardening, as it has been treated in this 
work. 

Composition includes those observations on utility, 
scale, perspective, etc., contained in Chapters I and 
II. 

Design may be considered as belonging to the remarks 
on water, woods, fences, lines, etc. , contained in 
Chapters III, IV, V, VI, and VII. 

Expression includes all that relates to character, situa- 
tion, arrangement, and the adaptation of works of art 
to the scenery of nature, which have been discussed 
in the remaining Chapters of this work ; and, lastly. 

Colouring, so far as it relates to certain artificial objects, 
has been mentioned in Chapter XI. 

Having since been led to consider this subject more 
attentively, in consequence of a conversation with Mr. 
Wilberforce concerning a new theory of colours and 
shadows, I have, through his intervention, obtained 
permission to enrich my work with the following curi- 
ous remarks: and as Mr, Wilberforce, in his letter 
which enclosed them, observes of their reverend and 



!2i8 The Art of Landscape Gardening 

learned author that " he is a man unequalled " " for the 
store of knowledge he possesses, for the clearness with 
which he views, and the happy perspicuity with which 
he communicates his conceptions," so I shall give this 
theory in his own words/' 

This curious and satisfactory theory demonstrates 
that the choice of colours which so often distinguishes 
good from bad taste in manufactures, furniture, dress, 
and in every circumstance where colour may be arti- 
ficially introduced, is not the effect of chance or fancy, 
but guided by certain general laws of nature. 

Sir Isaac Newton discovered a wonderful coincidence 
between sound and colours, and proves mathematically 
that the spaces occupied by the colours in the prismatic 
spectrum correspond with the parts of a musical chord 
when it is so divided as to sound the notes of an octave. 
So this resemblance may now be considered as extend- 
ing further, for, as in music, so likewise in colours, it 
will be found that harmony consists in distance and 
contrast, not in similitude or approximation. Two notes 
near each other are grating to the ear, and are called 
discords ; in like manner, two colours very near each 
other are unpleasing to the sight, and may be called 
discordant ; this may be proved by covering all the col- 
ours in the diagram (See Note 47, p. 246) except the two 
adjoining, which, in every part of the scale, will appear 
discordant ; while, on the contrary, if the two sides be 
covered in any direction so as only to shew the two op- 
posite colours, they will appear in perfect harmony with 
each other; and this experiment confirms the good 
taste of those who, in the choice of colours, oppose reds 
to greens, yellows to purples, and blues to oranges, etc. 
But instead of contrasting these colours, they are mixed 
or so blended as not to appear each distinctly, as in 



Theory and Practice 219 

silks or linens where the stripes are too narrow ; when 
seen at a little distance, instead of relieving, they will 
destroy each other. In the application of this theory to 
some familiar instances, particularly in the furniture of 
rooms, I have observed that two colours, here deemed 
discordant, may be used without offending the eye, as 
green and blue, or green and yellow ; but I have always 
considered such assortment intolerable, unless one were 
very dark and the other very light ; and thus the effect 
is ^gain produced by contrast, although on a different 
principle : it is the contrast, not between colours, but 
between light and darkness. 

So far this theory is perfectly satisfactory with respect 
to works of art, but, when carried to those of nature, 
I confess my inability to reconcile a conviction of its 
truth with certain appearances which seem to contra- 
dict it. 

By the universal consent of all who have considered 
the harmony of colours, it is allowed that in works of 
art the juxtaposition of bright blues and greens is dis- 
cordant to the eye, and the reason of this discordance 
has been shewn by the foregoing remarks. Yet these 
are the two prevailing colours in nature ; and no per- 
son ever objected to the want of harmony in a natural 
landscape, because the sky was blue and the surface of 
the earth covered with greens, except he viewed it with 
a painter's eye, and considered the difficulty or even 
impossibility of exciting the same pleasurable sensa- 
tions by transferring these colours to his canvas ; the 
only way in which I can solve this seeming paradox is 
by observing that the works of nature and those of art 
must ever be placed at an immeasurable distance, from 
the different scale of their proportions ; and whether 
we compare the greater efforts of man with the system 



iio The Art of Landscape Gardening 

in which the world he inhabits forms but an inconsider- 
able speck, or the most exquisite miniature of mech- 
anism with the organs of sense and motion in an insect, 
we must equally feel the deficiency of comparison, the 
incompetency of imitation, and the imperfection of all 
human system. Yet, while lost in wonder and amaze- 
ment, the man of taste and the true philosopher will 
feel such agreement existing in the laws of nature as 
can only be the consequence of Infinite Wisdom and 
Design ; while to the sceptic, whether in moral or in 
natural philosophy, the best answer will be in the words 
of the poet : 

" All nature is but art unknown to thee ; 
All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 
All discord, harmony not understood ; 
All partial evil, universal good." 



NOTES 



Notes 



' [Launcelot Brown, landscape gardener and architect, was 
born in 1715 at Harle-Kirk, Northumberland, England. He 
was originally a kitchen-gardener in the employment of Lord 
Cobham, at Stowe. His remarkable faculty for prejudging land- 
scape effects procured him the patronage of persons of rank and 
taste. Repton speaks of Brown as the founder of the English 
style of landscape gardening, but the real founder was not 
Brown, but William Kent (b. 1684; d. 1748). Brown, how- 
ever, worked with greater genius and wider success. He real- 
ized a large fortune, and by his amiable manners and high 
character supported with dignity the station of a country gen- 
tleman. He died in 1783. — N.] 

^ CATALOGUE OF RED BOOKS 

From whence the extracts in Sketches and Hints are made ; or which are mentioned 
as containing further elucidations of the subjects introduced in this first volume. 

PLACE COUNTY A SEAT OF 

Antony House Cornwall .Reginald Pole Carew, Esq., M. P. 

Babworth Nottinghamshire Honourable John Bridgman Simpson. 

Bessacre Manor Yorkshire B. D. W. Cook, Esq. 

Brandsbury Middlesex Honourable Lady Salusbury. 

Brocklesby Lincolnshire Right Honourable Lord Yarborough. 

Brookmans Herts S. R. Gaussen, Esq. 

Buckminster Leicestershire Sir Wiiliam Manners, Bart. 

Castle Hill Middlesex H. Beaufoy, Esq., M. P. 

Catchfrench Cornwall F. Glanville, Esq. 

Claybury Essex James Hatch, Esq. 

Cobham Park Kent Earl Darnley. 

Courteen Hall Northamptonshire Sir William Wake, Bart. 

Crewe Hall Cheshire John Crewe, Esq., M. P. 

Culford Suflfolk Marquis Cornwallis. 

Donington Leicestershire Earl Moira. 

Ferney Hall Shropshire Late Sam. Phipps, Esq. 

Finedon Northamptonshire J. English Dolben, Esq. 

Garnons Herefordshire J. G. Cotterell, Esq. [In 1838, Sir J. G. 

Cotterell, Bart.J 

Gayhurst Bucks George Wrighte, Esq. 

Glevering Suffolk Chaloner Arcedeckne, Esq. 

Hanslope Park Bucks Edward Watts, Esq. 

Hazells Hall Bedfordshire Francis Pym, Esq. 



224 Notes 



PLACE COUNTY A SEAT OF 

Herriard's House Hampshire G. Purefoy Jervoise, Esq. 

Holkham Norfolk T. W. Coke, Esq., M. P. [In 1838, the 

Earl of Leicester.] 

Holme Park Berkshire Richard Palmer, Esq. 

Holwood Kent Right Honourable W. Pitt. [In 1838, 

John Ward, Esq.] 

Lamer Herts Lieutenant-Colonel C. Drake Garrard. 

Langley Park Kent Sir Peter Burrell, Bart., M. P. [In 1838 

E. Goodhart, Esq.] 

Lathom Lancashire Wilbraham Bootle, Esq. 

Little Green Sussex Thomas Peckham Phipps, Esq. 

Livermere Park Suffolk N. Lee Acton, Esq. 

Milton Cambridgeshire Samuel Knight, Esq. 

Milton Park Northamptonshire Earl Fitzwiiham. 

Nacton Suffolk P. B. Broke, Esq.. 

Northrepps Norfolk Bartlet Giirney, Esq. 

Ouston Yorkshire Bryan Cook, Esq. 

Port Eliot Cornwall Right Honourable Lord Eliot. 

Prestwood Staffordshire Honourable Edward Foley, M. P. 

Purley Berkshire Anthony Morris Storer, Esq. 

Riven Hall Essex C. C. Western, Esq., M. P. 

Rudding Hall Yorkshire Lord Loughborough, L. H. Chancellor. 

Scrielsby Lincolnshire Honourable the Champion Dymock. 

Sheffield Place Sussex Right Honourable Lord Sheffield. 

Stoke Park Herefordshire Honourable E. Foley, M. P. 

Stoke Pogies Bucks John Penn, Esq. 

Stoneaston Somersetshire Hippesley Coxe, Esq., M. P. 

Sundridge Kent E. G. Linde, Esq. [In 1838, Sir SamL 

Scott, Bart.] 

Sunninghill Berks James Sibbald, Esq. 

Tatton Park Cheshire , William Egerton, Esq., M. P. 

Thoresby Nottinghamshire Charles Pierrepont, Esq., M. P. 

Trewarthenick Cornwall Fr. Gregor, Esq., M. P. 

Tyrringham Bucks William Praed, Esq., M. P. 

Waresley Essex Sir Geo. AUanson Winn, Bart., M. P. 

Welbeck Nottinghamshire His Grace the Duke of Portland. 

Wembly Middlesex Richard Page, Esq. 

Whersted Suffolk Sir Robert Harland, Bart. 

Widdial Hall Herts J. T. Ellis, Esq. 

3 Having always had these considerations in view when- 
ever I have been consulted on the site of a new house, or on 
the preservation of the old one, I shall take the liberty of men- 
tioning several instances, in some of which the original Red 
Books may possibly be consulted, to shew the variety of manner 
in which these general rules have been applied to particular 
purposes : Sunninghill, Sundridge, Courteen Hall, Whersted, 
Waresley Park, Ouston, Bessacre Manor, Northrepps, Buck- 
minster, Little Green, Holme Park, Purley. 

* [Professional architects and landscape architects would not 
agree with this view of Repton. It indicates a narrowness with 



Notes 225 

regard to formal design and a failure to appreciate the satisfac- 
tion to be obtained from an appropriately terminated vista. 
Moreover, Repton's estimate of the avenue at Langley Park is 
most unusual and not in accordance with the present prin- 
ciples of landscape design. — N.] 

5 It is of little consequence from what spot a drawing is 
taken, since all avenues bear so great a resemblance to each 
other. I shall here enumerate a few instances in which avenues 
have been submitted to my consideration. At Cobham Park 
I give reasons for preserving one, and destroying the rest ; at 
Prestwood, for retaining the avenue ; at Tatton Park, for 
quitting the avenue, and planting it up ; at Trewarthenick, an 
avenue was very easily broken, from its having been planted 
on uneven ground; and at Brookmans, I elucidate the necessity 
of fixing on proper trees to form the outline in breaking an 
avenue ; or if the trees have stood so long near each other 
that no good outline can be formed, then the tops of some 
neighbouring trees may be so introduced as in some degree to 
supply the defect. 

An avenue of firs is the most obstinate to break, because 
they leave no lateral branches ; and, therefore, in the stupend- 
ous double row of large silver firs, which the false taste of 
the last century has planted at Herriard's house, I have advised 
the destruction of one half, leaving the other as a magnificent 
specimen of the ancient style in gardening. 

^ This subject has also been mentioned in the following Red 
Books, viz. Ferney Hall, Rudding Hall, Widdial Hall, Bab- 
worth, Scrielsby, Milton, Livermere, Garnons, Crewe Hall, 
Brocklesby, Thoresby, Stoneaston, Nacton, etc. 

7 Essay on the Sublime^ part 11, section 10. 

^ [In the original edition this chapter was entitled " Concern- 
ing Park Scenery." It has been changed to " Large Private 
Places " because the word " park " has come to mean some- 
thing different from what Repton had in mind. — N.] 

9 There is at present no word by which we express that 
sort of territory adjacent to a country mansion, which, being 
too large for a garden, too wild for pleasure-ground, and too 



226 Notes 

neat for a farm, is yet often denied the name of a park, be- 
cause it is not fed by deer. I generally waive this distinction, 
and call the wood and lawns, near every house, a park, whether 
fed by deer, by sheep, or heavy cattle. 

'° [See An Essay on Taste. By A. Gerard, D.D. To 
which are prefixed three Dissertations on the same subject 
by M. de Voltaire, M. d'Alembert, and M. de Montesquieu. 
Edinburgh, 1764. i2mo. — J. C. L.] 

" Lord Kaims's Elements of Criticism. 

" The subject has been more fully treated in my remarks 
on Holwood, in Kent, a seat of the Right Hon. Wm. Pittj 
and Stoke, in Herefordshire, a seat of the Hon. Edw. Foley. 

'3 It was not my original intention to have treated of "Ap- 
proaches " in this volume, as it is a subject that requires to be 
elucidated by many plates ; but the publication of a didactic 
poem, The Landscape: a Poem^ by R. P. Knight, Esq., addressed 
to Uvedale Price, Esq., where much is said on that subject 
under the sanction and authority of two gentlemen of acknow- 
ledged taste, obliges me to defend not only my own principles 
and the reputation of my late predecessor, Mr. Brown, but 
also the art itself, from attacks which are the more dangerous 
from the manner in which they are conveyed ; and because 
they are accompanied by some doctrines to which every per- 
son of true taste must give his assent. Yet, while I pay this 
tribute due to the merit of a work containing many things 
worthy of admiration, and while I acknowledge my personal 
obligation for being the only individual in my profession to 
whom any degree of merit is allowed by the author of it, I 
feel it a kind of duty to watch with a jealous eye every in- 
novation on the principles of taste in landscape gardening, 
since I have been honoured with the care of so many of the 
finest places in the kingdom. 

'"♦ Gerardin^ Viscomte d' Ermenonville., sur le Pay sage. A work 
containing many just observations ; but often mixed with 
whimsical conceits, and impracticable theories of gardening. 
[The work alluded to is translated under the title of An 
Essay on Landscape ; or., on the means of Improving and Emhel- 



Notes 



227 



lishing the Country round our Habitations. Translated from the 
French of R. L. Gerardin, Viscomte d'Ermenonville. London, 
1783. i2mo — J. C. L.] 

's Thus, before a house is planned, the proprietor must 
describe the kind of house he wishes to build. The architect 
is to consider what must be had and what may be dispensed 
with. He ought to keep his plan as scrupulously within the 
expense proposed as within the limits of the ground he is to 
build upon : he is, in short, to enter into the views, the wishes, 
and the ideas of the gentleman who will inhabit the house 
proposed. 

'•^ The requisites of taste are well described by Dr. Beattie, 
under five distinct heads: " i. A lively and correct imagina- 
tion ; 2, the power of distinct apprehension ; 3, the capacity 
of being easily, strongly, and agreeably affected with sublimity, 
beauty, harmony, correct imitation, etc. ; 4, sympathy, or sen- 
sibility of heart ; and, 5, judgement, or good sense, which is 
the principal thing, and may not very improperly be said to 
comprehend all the rest." 

'7 CATALOGUE OF RED BOOKS 

From whence the extracts in Theory and Practice are made, 

PLACE COUNTY A SEAT OF 

Abington Hall Cambridgeshire John Mortlock, Esq. 

Adlestrop Gloucestershire L. H. Leigh, Esq. 

Antony Cornwall R. P. Carew, Esq., M. P. 

Ashton Court Somersetshire Sir Hugh Smyth, Bart. 

Aston Cheshire Honourable Mrs. Harvey Aston. 

Attingham Shropshire Right Honourable Lord Berwick. 

Babworth Nottinghamshire Honourable J. B. Simpson, M. P. 

Bank Farm Surry Honourable General St. John. 

Bayham Kent Earl Camden. 

Betchworth Surry Honourable W. H. Bouverie, M. P. 

Blaize Castle Gloucestershire J. S. Harford, Esq. 

Bowood Wiltshire Marquis Lansdown. 

Brandsbury Middlesex Honourable Lady Salusbury. 

Bracondale Norfolk P. Martineau, Esq. 

Brentry Hill. , Gloucestershire Wm. Payne, Esq. 

Buckminster Leicestershire Sir Wm. Manners, Bart. 

Bulstrode Buckinghamshire His Grace the Duke of Portland. 

Burleigh on the Hill. .Rutlandshire Earl Winchelsea. 

Catton Norfolk Jer. Ives, Esq. 

Cashiobury Hertfordshire Earl of Essex. 

Catchfrench Cornwall Francis Glanville, Esq., M. P. 



228 Notes 



A SEAT OF 



Chilton Lodge Berkshire John Pearse, Esq. 

Clayberry Hall Essex James Hatch, Esq. 

Cobham Kent Earl Darnley. 

Courteen Hall Northamptonshire Sir William Wake, Bart. 

Corsham House Wiltshire Paul Cob. Methuen, Esq. 

Condover Park Shropshire Owen Smyth Owen, Esq. 

Coombe Lodge Berks & Oxfordshire.. Samuel Gardener, Esq. 

Cote Bank Gloucestershire William Broderip, Esq. 

Crewe Cheshire John Crewe, Esq., M. P. 

Culford Suffolk Marquis Cornwallis 

Donington Park Leicestershire Earl Moira. 

Dulwich Casina Surry Richard Shawe, Esq. 

Dullingham House .. .Cambridgeshire Colonel Jeaffreson. 

Dyrham Park Gloucestershire WiUiam Blathwayte, Esq. 

Fort Bristol T. Tyndall, Esq. 

Garons Herefordshire J. G. Cotterel, Esq., M. P. 

Gayhurst Buckinghamshire George Wright, Esq. 

Glemham Suffolk Dudley North, Esq., M. P. 

Grove The Southgate Walker Gray, Esq. 

Hasells Bedfordshire Francis Pym, Esq. 

Harewood House Yorkshire Right Honourable Lord Harewood. 

Heathfield Sussex Francis Newberry, Esq. 

High Legh Cheshire G. J. Legh, Esq. 

Higham Hills Essex .John Harman, Esq. 

Highlands Essex C. H. Kortright, Esq. 

Hill Hall Essex Sir William Smyth, Bart. 

Holkham Norfolk T. W. Coke, Esq., M. P. 

Holwood Kent Right Honourable William Pitt. 

Holme Park Berkshire Richard Palmer, Esq. 

Hooton Cheshire Sir Thomas Stanley, Bart 

Hurlingham in Fulham John Ellis, Esq. 

Kenwood Middlesex Earl Mansfield. 

Langley Park Kent Right Honourable Lord Gwydr. 

Lathom House Lancashire Wilbraham Bootle, Esq., M. P. 

Langleys Essex W. Tuffnel, Esq. 

Livermere Suffolk N. Lee Acton, Esq. 

Luscombe Devonshire Ch. Hoare, Esq. 

Maiden Early Berkshire E. Golding, Esq., M. P" 

Magdalen College. .. .Oxford President and Fellows. 

Merly House Dorsetshire W. Willet Willet, Esq. 

Milton House Cambridgeshire Samual Knight, Esq. 

Milton Abbey Northamptonshire Earl Wentworth Fitzwilliam.. 

Michel Grove Sussex Richard Walker, Esq. 

Moccas Court Herefordshire Sir George Cornewall, Bart., M. P. 

Mulgrave Yorkshire Right Honourable Lord Mulgrave. 

Newton Park Somersetshire W. Gore Langton, Esq., M. P. 

Normanton Rutlandshire Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Bart, M. P. 

Oldbury Court Gloucestershire T. Graeme, Esq. 

Organ Hall Hertfordshire William Togwood, Esq. 

Panshanger Hertfordshire Earl Cowper. 

Port Eliot Cornwall Right Honourable Lord Crags Eliot. 

Prestwood Staffordshire Honourable Edward Foley, M. P. 

Plas Newdy Anglesea Earl of Uxbridge. 

Purley Berkshire J. Ant. Storer, Esq. 

Rendlesham Suffolk P. Thellusson, Esq., M. P. 

RUg North Wales Colonel E. V. W. Salesbury. 



Notes 229 

PLACE COUNTY A SEAT OF 

Sarsden Oxfordshire J. Langston, Esq., M. P. 

Scarrisbrick Lancashire T. Scarrisbrick Eccleston, Esq. 

Sheffield Place Sussex Right Honourable Lord Sheffield. 

Shardeloes Buckinghamshire William Drake, Esq., M. P. 

Stoke Park Herefordshire Honourable E. Foley, M. P. 

Stoke Pogies Berkshire John Penn, Esq. 

Stoneaston Somersetshire Hippesley Coxe, Esq., M. P. 

St. John's Isle of Wight Edward Simeon, Esq. 

Stapleton Gloucestershire Dr. Lovell, M. D. 

Stratton Park Hampshire Sir Francis Baring, Bart, M. P. 

Streatham Villa Surry Robert Brown, Esq. 

Sufton Court Herefordshire James Hereford, Esq. 

Sundridge Park Kent Claude Scott, Esq., M. P. 

Suttons Essex Charles Smith, Esq., M. P. 

Taplow Buckinghamshire J. Fryer, Esq. 

TenSring Suffolk Sir William Rowley, Bart. 

Thoresby Nottinghamshire Lord Viscount Newark. 

Valleyfield Perthshire Sir Robert Preston, Bart., M. P. 

Wall Hall Hertfordshire G. W. Thellusson, Esq., M. P. 

West Wycombe Buckinghamshire Sir J. Dashwood King, Bart. 

Wentworth House. . . . Yorkshire Earl Wentworth Fitzwilliam. 

Welbeck Nottinghamshire His Grace the Duke of Portland. 

Whitton Park Middlesex Samuel Prime, Esq. 

Wimpole Cambridgeshire Earl Hardwicke. 

Woodley Berkshire Right Honourable H. Addington, M. P. 

Wycombe Buckinghamshire Right Honourable Lord Carrington. 

'^ On the summit of another building, viz. a sawmill in 
the park, was a figure of a man in a brown coat and a broad- 
brimmed hat, representing the great Penn, of Pennsylvania, 
which being much larger than the natural proportion of a man, 
yet having the appearance of a man upon the roof of the 
building, diminished the size of every other object by which it 
was surrounded. It has since been removed, and is now in the 
possession of Mr. Penn, at Stoke Pogies, where, placed in a 
room, it seems a colossal figure. Another instance of false scale 
at this place was the diminutive building with a spire at the 
end of the park, which, perhaps, when the neighbouring trees 
were small, might have been placed there with a view of ex- 
tending the perspective. This artifice may be allowable in cer- 
tain cases and to a certain degree, yet a cathedral in miniature 
must in itself be absurd ; and when we know that it was only 
the residence of a shoemaker, and actually dedicated to St. 
Crispin, it becomes truly ridiculous. 

I have drawn these examples of defects from West Wy- 
combe, because they are obvious to every passenger on a very 



230 Notes 

public road, and because I shall, in the course of this volume, 
have occasion to mention the many beauties of this place. 

'9 Of this I observed a curious instance at Hooton House, 
from whence a distant view of Liverpool and its busy scenery 
of shipping is not easily seen without opening the windows, 
while the difference of a few yards in the original position of 
the house would have obviated the defect, while it improved 
its general situation. 

^° That I may not be misunderstood, as recommending a 
road over hill and dale to shew the extent or beauty of a place, 
I must here observe that nothing can justify a visible devia- 
tion from the shortest line in an approach to a house but such 
obstacles as evidently point out the reason for the deviation. 

^' To produce this efFect two or more trees should some- 
times be planted in the same hole, cutting their roots so as to 
bring them nearer together ; and we sometimes observe great 
beauty in a tree and a bush thus growing together, or even in 
trees of different characters, as the great oak and ash at Wel- 
beck and the oak and beech in Windsor Forest. Yet it will 
generally be more consonant to nature if the groups be formed 
of the same species of trees. 

" All trees exposed to cattle are liable to this browsing- 
line, although thorns, crabs, and other prickly plants will 
sometimes defend themselves : the alder, from the bitterness 
of its leaves, is also an exception ; but where sheep only are 
admitted, the line will be so much below the eye that it pro- 
duces a different effect, of which great advantage may some- 
times be taken, especially in flat situations. 

^2 This remark is verified at Aston, where it is found that 
more cattle are fed in the park from the improved quality of 
the pasture, since the quantity has been reduced by the ample 
plantations made within the last ten years. 

24 « Xhe outline of a wood may sometimes be great and 
always be beautiful ; the first requisite is irregularity. That 
a mixture of trees and underwood should form a long straight 
line can never be natural, and a succession of easy sweeps 
and gentle rounds, each a portion of a greater or less circle. 



Notes 231 

composing altogether a line literally serpentine, is, if possible, 
worse : it is but a number of regularities put together in a dis- 
orderly manner, and equally distant from the beautiful, both 
of art and of nature. The true beauty of an outline consists 
more in breaks than in sweeps ; rather in angles than in 
rounds ; in variety, not in succession. 

" The outline of a wood is a continued line, and small vari- 
ations do not save it from the insipidity of sameness ; one deep 
recess, one bold prominence, has more effect than twenty 
little irregularities : that one divides the line into parts, but no 
breagh is thereby made in its unity ; a continuation of wood 
always remains, the form of it only is altered, and the extent 
is increased : the eye, which hurries to the extremity of what- 
ever is uniform, delights to trace a varied line through all its 
intricacies, to pause from stage to stage, and to lengthen the 
progress. 

" The parts must not, however, on that account be multi- 
plied till they are too minute to be interesting and so numer- 
ous as to create confusion A few large parts should be 
strongly distinguished in their forms, their directions, and their 
situations ; each of these may afterwards be decorated with 
subordinate varieties, and the mere growth of the plants will 
occasion some irregularity ; on many occasions more will not 
be required. 

" Every variety in the outline of a wood must be a promin- 
ence or a recess ; breadth in either is not so important as length 
to the one and depth to the other; if the former ends in an 
angle or the latter diminishes to a point, they have more force 
than a shallow dent or a dwarf excrescence, how wide soever: 
they are greater deviations from the continued line which they 
are intended to break and their effect is to enlarge the wood 
itself. 

"An inlet into a wood seems to have been cut if the oppo- 
site points of the entrance tally, and that shew of art depre- 
ciates its merit : but a difference only in the situation of those 
points, by bringing one more forward than the other, prevents 
the appearance, though their forms be similar. 



232 



Notes 



" Other points which distinguish the great parts, should, in 
general, be strongly marked ; a short turn has more spirit 
in it than a tedious circuity ; and a line, broken by angles, has 
a precision and firmness which in an undulated line are want- 
ing ; the angles should, indeed, be a little softened ; the rotund- 
ity of the plant which forms them is sometimes sufficient for 
that purpose; but if they are mellowed down too much they 
lose all meaning. 

" Every variety of outline, hitherto mentioned, may be traced 
by the underwood alone ; but frequently the same effects may be 
produced with more ease, and much more beauty, by a few 
trees standing out from the thicket, and belonging, or seeming 
to belong, to the wood, so as to make a part of its figure." 
[From Observations on Modern Gardenings by Thomas Whate- 
ley.] 

^5 Courseof the drive at Bulstrode. Taking the departure from 
the house, along the valley, towards the north, it passes the 
situation proposed for a cottage at [Plate xiii] No. i, from 
thence ascends to the summit of the chalk cliff that overhangs 
the dell at No. 2, and making a sharp turn at No. 3, to de- 
scend with ease, it crosses the head of the valley, and enters 
the rough broken ground, which is curious for the variety of 
plants at No. 4. 

From the several points, Nos. i, 2, and 3, the view along 
the great valley is nearly the same, but seen under various 
circumstances of foreground: at No. 4 it crosses the approach 
from London, and passes through an open grove, No. 5. 

The drive now sweeps round on the knoll at No. 6, along 
a natural terrace, from which the opposite hill and the house 
appear to great advantage. From hence, crossing the valley, 
No. 7, among the finest trees in the park, it passes a deep ro- 
mantic dell at No. 8, which might be enlivened by water, as 
a drinking-pool for the deer, and then, as it will pass at No. 9, 
near the side of the Roman camp, I think the drive ' should 
be made on one of the banks of the Vallum ; because it is 

' This great work being in a progressive state, the reader will observe that some 
parts of this drive are mentioned as not yet completed. 



Notes 122 

a circumstance of antiquity worthy to be drawn into notice ; 
and, by being elevated above the plain, we shall not only see 
into the intrenchment, but remark the venerable trees which 
enrich its banks ; these trees are the growth of many centuries, 
yet they lead the mind back to the far more ancient date of 
this encampment, when the ground must have been a naked 
surface. Another advantage will also be derived from carrying 
the drive above the level of the plain. T'he eye being raised 
above the browsing-line^ the park wall will be better hid by the 
lower branches of intermediate trees. At No. lo the drive is less 
interesting, because the surface is flat; but such occasional tame- 
nes's gives repose^' and serves to heighten the interest of subse- 
quent scenery ; yet at this place, if the drive be made to 
branch along the Vallum, it will pass over the most beautiful 
part of the park, on a natural terrace, at No. 1 1, and this will 
join the inner drive, returning down the valley towards the 
kitchen-garden. 

I am now to speak of the great woods called Fentum's, 
Piper's, Column's, Walk Wood, and Shipman's, in which a 
serpentine drive has been formerly cut, which no one would 
desire to pass a second time, from its length, added to the 
total absence of interest or variety of objects ; but following 
the taste which supposes " Nature to abhor a straight line," 
this drive meanders in uniform curves of equal lengths, and 
the defect is increased by there being only one connexion with 
the park, while the other end of the drive finishes at a great 
distance across Fulmer Common. The first object, therefore, 
of improvement will be to form such a line of connexion 
with the park as may make it seem a part of the same do- 
main, and this would be more easily done if the hollow way- 
road under the park wall could be removed ; because other- 
wise the drive must cross the road twice at No. 12, as I sup- 
pose it to enter a field at No. 13, which might be planted to 
connect it with the Broomfield copse. No. 14, from whence, 

' The browsing-line is explained in " Theory and Practice," chap, iv, p. 109. 

* The excess of variety may become painful, and therefore, in a long drive, some 
parts should be less interesting, or, if possible, should excite no interest, and be indiffer- 
ent without exciting disgust. 



234 



Notes 



after crossing several interesting small enclosures, with forest- 
like borders, it enters and sweeps through the wood. Little 
Fentums, No. i6, to join the old drive, or at least such parts 
of it as can be made subservient to a more interesting line. 
After crossing a valley and streamlet at No. 17, and another 
at No. 18, it should ascend the hill of Piper's Wood, in which 
there are at present no drives, and at No. 19, a branch may 
lead on to the common, as a green way to London. The 
drive, sweeping round to No. 20, opens on a view of the 
village and valley of Fulmer, with a series of small ponds, 
which, in this point of view, appear to be one large and beau- 
tiful piece of water : this scene may be considered the most 
pleasing subject for a picture during the whole course of the 
drive. This would be a proper place for a covered seat, with 
a shed behind it for horses or open carriages ; ' but it should 
be set so far back as to command the view under the branches 
of trees, which are very happily situated for the purpose at 
No. 20. 

From hence the drive descends the hill, in one bold line. 
No. 21, with a view towards the opposite wood across the 
valley. Having again ascended the hill, in wood, there are 
some parts of the present drive which might be made interest- 
ing by various expedients. At No. 22, one side of the drive 
might be opened to shew the opposite hanging wood in glades 
along the course of the drive. At No. 23, a shorter branch 
might be made to avoid the too great detour, though there is 
a view into the valley of Fulmer, at No. 24, worthy to be pre- 
served.^ In some parts the width of the drive might be varied 
and some of the violent curvatures corrected ; in others, the 

' In long drives such attention to convenience is advisable ; a thatched hovel of 
Doric proportions may not only be made an ornament to the scenery, but it will often 
serve for a shelter from sudden storms in our uncertain climate ; for this reason it should 
be large enough to contain several open carriages. 

^ I have distinguished, by italics, some peculiar circumstances of variety, from hav- 
ing observed great sameness in the usual mode of conducting a drive through a belt of 
young plantation, where trees of every species are mixed together. There is actually 
more variety in passing from a grove of oaks to a grove of firs or a scene of brush- 
wood than in passing through a wood composed of a hundred different species of trees 
as they are usually mixed together. 



Notes 22 S 

best trees might be singled out and little openings made^ to he fed 
by sheep occasionally ; and another mode of producing variety 
would be to take away certain trees and leave others^ where any 
particular species abound : thus in some places the birches only 
might be left^ and all the oaks and beech and other plants re- 
moved, to make, in time, a specimen of Birkland forest, while 
there are some places where the holly and hawthorn might be 
encouraged^ and all taller growth give place to these low shrubs, 
with irregular shapes of grass flowing among them. This 
would create a degree of variety that it is needless to enlarge 
upon. 

The course of the drive through Shipman's Wood, No. 26, 
may be brought lower down the hill, to keep the two lines as 
far distant from each other as possible, and also to make the 
line easier round the knoll at No. 28, though an intermediate 
or shorter branch may also diverge, at No. 27, towards the 
valley. There is some difficulty in joining this drive with 
the park without going round the gardener's house ; but as the 
kitchen-garden must be seen from this part of the drive, and 
as it forms a leading feature in the establishment of Bulstrode, 
it will sometimes become part of the circuit to walk through 
it, and the carriages may enter the drive again at No. 31 ; I 
have, therefore, described two ways. No. 29 and No. 30, as 
1 suppose the bottom of this valley to be an orchard, through 
which the drive may pass, or make the shorter line along the 
garden-wall, to No. 31. 

The course along the valley is extremely interesting ; and 
as some consider the farm-yard and premises a part of the 
beauty as well as the comfort of a residence in the country, 
I have supposed one branch of the drive. No. 32, to pass near 
a large tree, and the other to go on the bank at No. 33, and 
cross the corner of Hedgerley Green, which I suppose might 
be planted round the gravel-pit ; but when the drive enters the 
farm enclosures^ it ought^ if possible^ to follow the course of the 
hedges^ and not to cross a field diagonally. From No, 34 to 
No. 35 is perfectly flat, and follows the line of the hedges to 
the corner at No. 35, where a new scene presents itself, viz. 



i^S Notes 

a view toward the village of Hedgerley, in a valley, surrounded 
with woody banks. The drive now skirts along the hedge, 
and passes, at No. 36, a farmhouse, which might be opened 
to the field, and then enters Wapsey's Wood, in which the 
first bold feature will present itself at No. 37, where the 
drive may come so near the edge as to shew the view along 
the valley and the amphitheatre of wood surrounding these 
small enclosures : it then passes through the wood to a very 
large oak, at No. 38, which may be brought into notice by 
letting the drive go on each side of it, and afterwards, follow- 
ing the shape of the ground, it sweeps round the knoll at No. 
39, with a rich view of the opposite bank, across the high- 
road, seen under large trees ; it then ascends the hill by the 
side of a deep dell at No. 40, and makes a double at No. 41, 
to cross the valley, that it may skirt round the knoll on the 
furze hill at No. 42, from whence it descends into the valley at 
No. 43, and either returns to the house, by the approach from 
Oxford, or is continued under the double line of elms at No. 44, 
to ascend by the valley from whence the drive began. 

To some persons this description may appear tedious ; to 
others it will perhaps furnish amusement to trace the course 
of such a line on the map ; but I have purposely distinguished, 
by italics, some observations containing principles which have 
not before been reduced to practical improvement. 

'^ It is in the act of removing trees and thinning woods 
that the landscape gardener must shew his intimate knowledge 
of pleasing combinations, his genius for p'ainting, and his acute 
perception of the principles of an art which transfers the 
imitative though permanent beauties of a picture to the pur- 
poses of elegant and comfortable habitation, the ever-varying 
effects of light and shade, and the inimitable circumstances 
of a natural landscape. 

^7 Examples of this may be seen at Bulstrode, at Michel 
Grove, at Brentry Hill, etc. 

^^ Although I have never seen Valley Field myself, yet 
it flatters me to learn that under the direction of my two sons, 
by taking advantage of the deep romantic glen and wooded 



Notes 237 

banks of the river which flows through the grounds and falls 
into the Frith of Forth at a short distance from the house, an 
approach has been made, which, for variety, interest, and pic- 
turesque scenery, may vie with anything of the kind in Eng- 
land ; while it remains a specimen of the powers of landscape 
gardening in that part of Scotland where the art had been 
introduced only by those imitators of Mr. Brown's manner 
who had travelled into the north. His own improvements 
were confined to England. 

^9 Earl Harcourt, although possessing great good taste, 
gives the whole merit of this garden to Mason the poet, as he 
does of his pleasure-grounds to Brown. Thus, superior to 
that narrow jealousy which would deny the just tribute of 
praise to the professor, his lordship is satisfied with having 
been the liberal friend and patron of merit. 

^° Mr. Knight has endeavoured to ridicule all display of ex- 
tent of property, which I consider one of the leading principles 
of the art. I contend that it is impossible to annex the same 
degree of importance to a modern house, however large, by the 
side of a highroad, that may be justly given to one surrounded 
by an extensive park. To this principle of improvement I have 
given the name of " appropriation." 

^' Mr. Price builds a theory of improvement on the study 
of the best pictures, without considering how little affinity 
there is betwixt the confined landscape exhibited on canvas 
and the extensive range which the eye at once comprehends ; 
and argues that the best works of the painter should be models 
for the improver. 

3' One great error in Mr. Brown's followers has been the un- 
necessary extent of parks. It is my opinion that, provided the 
boundary can be properly disguised, the largest parks need not 
exceed two or three hundred acres, else they are apt to become 
farms within a pale, or they are forests rather than parks. 

" Since I began these remarks on Attingham, Mr. Price 
has published a second volume of Essays on the Picturesque^ 
the whole of which is founded on his enthusiasm for pictures ; 
and he very justly observes (page 269), " Enthusiasm always 



238 Notes 

leads to the verge of ridicule, and seldom keeps totally within 
it." Thus, not content with making the works of great paint- 
ers the standard for laying-out grounds, they are also to fur- 
nish plans and elevations for all our buildings, from the palace 
CO the cottage : and since we cannot be quite reconciled to 
their being in a state of ruin, which would certainly be most 
picturesque, we must build them in such irregular forms that 
trees may be introduced in various hollows and recesses, to be 
left for this purpose. These will, indeed, very soon contribute 
to produce those weather-stains and harmonious tints which 
are more grateful to the painter's eye than polished marble, 
as the green rust on copper coins is more interesting to the 
antiquarian than the bright surface of gold or silver. Mr. Price 
confesses that two small difficulties occur in putting these 
projects fully in practice, viz. that " he sees no examples of 
chimneys and very few of slanting roofs " where fine pictures 
can be transferred from the canvas to the real residence of man. 
How void of taste must that man be who could desire a chim- 
ney or roof to his country-house when we are told that Poussin 
and Paul Veronese built whole cities without a single chimney 
and with only one or two slanting roofs ! This idea of de- 
riving all our instruction from the works of great painters is 
so ingenious and useful that it ought not to be confined to 
gardening and building. In our markets, for instance, instead 
of that formal trim custom of displaying poultry, fish, and 
fruit for sale on different stalls, why should we not rather 
copy the picturesque jumble of Schnyders and Rubens ? Our 
kitchens may be furnished after the designs of Teniers and 
Ostade, our stables after Wooverman's, and we may learn to 
dance from Watteau or Zuccarelli ; in short, there is no indi- 
vidual, from the emperor to the cobbler, who may not find 
a model for his imitation in the works of painters if he will 
but consult the whole series from Guido to Teniers. 

34 If I were to enumerate all those who have occasionally 
mentioned gardening as a relative subject of taste, I should 
hardly omit the name of any author, either ancient or modern. 
Some of the most ingenious hints, and even some just princi- 



Notes 239 

pies in the art, are to be found in the works of Theocritus, 
Homer, Virgil, Petrarch, Rousseau, Voltaire, Temple, Bacon, 
Addison, Home, Gilpin, Allison, etc. 

35 That this simile may not appear ludicrous, I should ob- 
serve that the ancient gardens were often made with refer- 
ence to military dispositions, or trees were sometimes planted 
in conformity to the order of certain battles ; thus, at Blenheim, 
the square clumps planted before Brown saw the place were 
in imitation of the famous battle from whence the place was 
named. And m an old map of a place in Suffolk, which, I be- 
liq^e, was planned by Le Notre, the names of regiments were 
given to square clumps or platoons of trees, which on paper 
resembled the positions of an army. 

3^ Twelve years ago, when I first delivered these opinions, 
they were deemed so contrary to modern practice that I was 
cautious in defending them. I have since more boldly sup- 
ported my original opinion, and rejoice that the good sense of 
the country admits their propriety. 

37 Elements of Criticism. 

3^ Like those described by Sir William Chambers, in his 
Chinese Gardening. 

39 By this term I mean to express scenery, less rude and 
neglected than the forest haunts of wild animals, and less arti- 
ficial than the farmer's field laid out for gain and not for 
appearance : or, m the words of a celebrated author, " to create 
a scenery more pure, more harmonious, and more expressive 
than any that is to be found in nature itself." 

*° Lest it should be objected that I am going beyond the 
precise boundaries of my profession, either as a landscape 
gardener or as an architect, I shall observe that the professor 
of taste in those arts must necessarily have a competent know- 
ledge of every art in which taste may be exercised. I have 
frequently given designs for furniture to the upholsterer, for 
monuments to the statuary, and to the goldsmith I gave a 
design for one of the most sumptuous presents of gold plate 
which was ever executed in this country : it consisted of a 
basin, in the form of a broad flat vase, and pedestal, round 



240 Notes 

which were the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity ; the for- 
mer spreading her hand over the water, as in the act of bene- 
diction, and the two latter supporting the vase, which resem- 
bled a baptismal font : the whole was executed in gold, and 
was the present of a noble duke to his son on the birth of his 
first child. 

■♦' Mr. Brown's fame as an architect seems to have been 
eclipsed by his celebrity as a landscape gardener, he being the 
only professor of the one art, while he had many jealous com- 
petitors in the other. But when I consider the number of 
excellent works in architecture designed and executed by him, 
it becomes an act of justice to his memory to record that, if 
he was superior to all in what related to his own peculiar pro- 
fession, he was inferior to none in what related to the comfort, 
convenience, taste, and propriety of design in the several man- 
sions and other buildings which he planned. Having occasion- 
ally visited and admired many of them, I was induced to make 
some inquiries concerning his works as an architect, and, with 
the permission of Mr. Holland, to whom, at his decease, he 
left his drawings, I insert the following list : 

For the Earl of Coventry. Croome, house, offices, lodges, church, 

etc. ,1751. 
Earl of Donegal. Fisherwick, house, offices, and bridge. 
Earl of Exeter. Burleigh, addition to the house, new offices, etc. 
Ralph Allen, Esq., near Bath, additional building, 1765. 
Lord Viscount Palmerston. Broadland, considerable additions. 
Lord Craven. Benham, a new house. 

Robert Drummond, Esq. Cadlands, a new house, offices, etc. 
Earl of Bute. Christ Church, a bathing-place. 
Paul Methuen, Esq. Corsham, the picture-gallery, etc. 
Marquis of Stafford. Trentham Hall, considerable alterations. 
Earl of Newbury. House, offices, etc., 1762. 
Rowland Holt, Esq. Redgrave, large new house, 1765. 
Lord Willoughby de Broke. Compton, a new chapel. 
Marquis of Bute. Cardiff Castle, large additions. 
Earl Harcourt, Nuneham, alterations, and new offices. 
Lord Clive. Clermont, a large new house. 



Notes 241 

Earl of Warwick. Warwick Castle, added to the entrance. 
Lord Cobham. Stowe, several of the buildings in the garden. 
Lord Clifford. Ugbrooke, a new house. 

To this list Mr. Holland added : " I cannot be indifferent 
to the fame and character of so great a genius, and am only 
afraid lest, in giving the annexed account, I should not do him 
justice. No man that I ever met with understood so well 
what was necessary for the habitation of all ranks and degrees 
of society ; no one disposed his offices so well, set his build- 
ings on such good levels, designed such good rooms, or so well 
provided for the approach, for the drainage, and for the com- 
fort and conveniences of every part of a place he was con- 
cerned in. This he did without ever having had one single 
difference or dispute with any of his employers. He left them 
pleased, and they remained so as long as he lived ; and when he 
died, his friend. Lord Coventry, for whom he had done so 
much, raised a monument at Croome to his memory." 

Such is the testimony of one of the most eminent and ex- 
perienced architects of the present time; and in a letter to me 
from the Earl of Coventry, written at Spring Hill, his lordship 
thus mentions Mr. Brown : 

" I certainly held him very high as an artist, and esteemed 
him as a most sincere friend. In spite of detraction, his works 
will ever speak for him. I write from a house which he built 
for me, which, without any pretension to architecture, is, per- 
haps, a model for every internal and domestic convenience. 
I may be partial to my place at Croome, which was entirely 
his creation, and, I believe, originally, as hopeless a spot as 
any in the island." 

I will conclude this tribute to the memory of my prede- 
cessor, by transcribing the last stanza of his epitaph, written 
by Mr. Mason, and which records, with more truth than most 
epitaphs, the private character of this truly great man : 

" But know that more than genius slumbers here : 

Virtues were his which art's best powers transcend ; 
Come, ye superior train, who these revere. 

And weep the Christian, husband, father, friend." 



242 Notes 

*^ The want of comfort, inseparable from a house in an 
exposed situation, even in the climate of Italy, is well illus- 
trated by Catullus : 

" Furi ! villula nostra, non ad Austri 
Flatus opposita est, nee ad Favoni, 
Nee saevi Boreae, aut Apeliotae ; 
Verum ad millia quindecim et ducentos. 
O ventum horribilem ! atque pestilentem ! " 

Catullus, Ode 26. 

My cottage, Furius, is not exposed to the blasts of the 
South, nor to those of the West, nor to the raging North, nor 
to the Southeast ; but to fifteen thousand two hundred blasts. 
Oh, that horrible and pestilent wind ! 

"♦^ [In 1832, the property on which Michel Grove stood 
was purchased by the Duke of Norfolk, and added to the 
domain of Arundel Castle. The house was pulled down and 
the materials sold. — J. C. L.] 

** C'est par une suite de cet usage de voir et d'entendre 
par les yeux et les oreilles de I'habitude, sans se rendre raison 
de rien, que s'est etablie cette maniere de couper sur le meme 
patron la droite et la gauche d'un batiment. On appelle cela 
de la symetrie ; Le Notre I'a introduite dans les jardins, et 
Mansard dans les batiments, et ce qu'il y a de curieux, c'est que 
lorsqu'on demande a quoi bon ? aucun expert Jure ne peut le 
dire ; car cette sacree symetrie ne contribue en rien a la solidite 
ni a la commodite des batiments, et loin qu'elle contribue a 
leur agrement, il n'y a si habile peintre qui puisse rendre sup- 
portable dans un tableau un batiment tout plattement syme- 
trique. Or, il est plus que vraisemblable que si la copie est 
ressemblante et mauvaise, I'original ne vaut gueres mieux, 
d'autant qu'en general tous les desseins de fabriques font plus 
d'effet en peinture qu'en nature. 

C'est done I'effet pittoresque qu'il faut principalement 
* chercher pour donner aux batiments le charme par lequel ils 
peuvent seduire et fixer les yeux. Pour y parvenir, il faut 
d'abord choisir le meilleur point de vue pour developper les 
objets ; et tacher, autant qu'il est possible, d'en presenter plu- 
sieurs faces. 



Notes 243 

C'est a donner de la saillie et du relief a toutes les formes, 
par I'opposition des renfoncemens et par un beau contraste 
d'ombre et de lumiere; c'est dans un juste rapport des propor- 
tions et de la convenance avec tous les objets environnans, 
qui doivent se presenter sous le meme coup d'oeil ; c'est a bien 
disposer tous les objets sur difFerens plans, de maniere que 
I'efFet de la perspective semble donner du movement aux dif- 
ferentes parties dont les unes paroissent eclairees, les autres 
dans I'ombre ; dont les unes paroissent venir en avant, tandis 
que les autres semblent fuir ; enfin, c'est a la composer de 
belles masses dont les ornements et les details ne combattent 
jamais I'efFet principal que doit s'attacher essentiellement 
I'architecture. 

Les anciens I'avoient si bien senti qu'ils ne se sont jamais 
occupees dans leur constructions, que de la grande masse, de 
maniere que les plus precieux ornements sembloient se con- 
fondre dans I'efFet general, et ne contrarioient jamais I'objet 
principal de I'ensemble, qui annon^oit toujours au premier 
coup d'oeil, par son genre et ses proportions, le caractere et la 
destination de leur edifices. 

[It is in consequence of this habit, of seeing and hearing 
with the eyes and ears of custom and prejudice, without consid- 
ering the reason of anything, that the practice of designing the 
right and left of a building to the same pattern has arisen. This 
is called symmetry ; Le Notre introduced it in gardens and 
Mansard in buildings ; and what is singular is that if any one 
asks to what purpose is it so ? no adept in the art can tell ; 
for this detestable symmetry contributes, in no degree, either 
to the solidity or convenience of the buildings : and so far is it 
from contributing to their beauty that there is no painter, how- 
ever skilful he may be, who can render a building, insipidly sym- 
metrical, tolerable in a picture. Now, it is more than probable 
that if the copy, though a good likeness, be bad, the original is 
no better, — inasmuch as, in general, all drawings of buildings 
have more efFect in a painting than in nature. 

It is picturesque efFect that must principally be sought for, in 
order to give to buildings the charm necessary to attract and 



244 Notes 

rivet the eye. For this purpose a point of view should be chosen 
which appears the best for shewing all the objects ; and the 
building should be so contrived as to present as many sides as 
possible at once. 

It is in giving prominence and relief to the principal forms, 
by the opposition afforded by the others, and by a fine contrast 
of shade and light ; it is in an accurate adjustment of the propor- 
tions of the buildings to those of the surrounding objects, which 
will be seen in the same coup d'aeil; it is in placing the objects 
on different levels, so that the effect of the perspective may 
seem almost to give movement to the different parts, of which 
some will appear in strong light and others in the shade, some 
will be brought prominently forward and others seem as though 
retiring ; in short, it is in composing beautiful masses, of which 
the ornaments and details never interfere with the principal 
effect, that the great art of architecture consists. 

The ancients understood this so well that in their buildings 
the general mass only was taken into consideration, so that the 
most costly ornaments seemed to be absorbed in the general 
effect, and were never at variance with the principal object of 
the whole, which always announced, at first sight, by its style 
and proportions, the character and destination of their edifices.] 

^5 This remark concerning our finest prospects being to- 
wards the west has been so often confirmed by repeated ob- 
servations that I have endeavoured to discover some natural 
cause for its general prevalence ; and perhaps it may, in some 
degree, be accounted for from the general position of the strata 
in all rocky countries, which appear to dip towards the east and 
rise towards the west ; in one direction, the view is along an 
inclined plane ; in the other, it is taken from the edge of a 
cliff, or some bold promontory overlooking the country towards 
the west. 

■♦^ It has occasionally been objected to Gothic houses that 
the old form of windows is less comfortable than modern 
sliding sashes ; not considering that the square top to a win- 
dow is as much a Gothic form as a pointed arch, and that to 
introduce sash-frames, as at Donnington, we have only to sup- 



Notes 245 

pose the mullions may have been taken out without injuring 
the general effect of the building ; while, in some rooms, the 
ancient form of window with large mullions may be preserved. 
Those who have noticed the cheerfulness and magnificence 
of plate-glass in the large Gothic windows of Cashiobury and 
Cobham will not regret the want of modern sashes in an an- 
cient palace. 

47 THEORY OF COLOURS AND SHADOWS 

Bv THE Rev. Dr. Milner, F.R.S. 
DEAN OF CARLISLE, AND PRESIDENT OF QUEEn's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 

1. Several years ago some curious questions concerning the 
colours of the shadows of bodies were proposed to me by an 
ingenious and philosophical friend, who himself can paint very 
well, and is an excellent judge of colours. He first mentioned 
the following facts : 

2. Supposing a pieceof writing-paper to be weakly illumined 
by white light, and, at the same time, to have a strong red light 
thrown upon it by any contrivance, the shadow upon the paper, 
of a body placed in the said red light, will be green. 

3. Or, vice versa^ if a strong green light be thrown upon the 
same paper, the shadow of a body placed in the green light will 
be red. 

4. Under similar circumstances, the shadowof a body inter- 
cepting orange-coloured light will be blue, purple, or almost 
violet, according as the orange light contains more or less red ; 
and vice versa. 

5. And lastly, the shadow of a body which intercepts yellow 
light will be purple, and vice versa. 

6. The phenomena just mentioned may be exhibited in sev- 
eral ways. The weak white light may always be had in a dark 
room, either by admitting a small portion of daylight or by 
means of a small lamp or wax taper, the light of which is 
sufficiently white for the purpose; and in regard to the strong 
coloured lights, they are also easily procured, either by using 



246 



Notes 



transmitted or reflected light of the particular colour wanted. 
As candles and lamps are always at hand and solar rays not so, 
I will here briefly describe the method of shewing any one, 
and, consequenily, all, of these beautiful experiments by candle- 
light. 

7. L, M, N, o [in Fig. 27] is a piece of white paper, illum- 
ined as in the figure ; d is a small cylinder of wood, as a black 

A small 5 h'^jn. 

taper burn- ^'n|^^****i^ 
ing clear \|| """^S* 




Green 
shadow 




Fig. 27. 



lead pencil, or even one's finger, in such a manner as to pro- 
duce the respective shadows d v and d K; c being a piece 
of red glass in this experiment. 

8. If, instead of red glass, a piece of green glass be placed at 
c, then the shadow d v will no longer be green, but of a red- 
dish cast ; and so of the rest as mentioned above, at section 3. 

9. My friend was very desirous that I should endeavour 
to account for these beautiful and most extraordinary appear- 
ances ; with this view, I first observe that the burning lights, 
A and B, when the experiments are made without daylight, may 
be reckoned nearly white, particularly if they are made to burn 
without smoke, though, in reality, they are yellowish, or even 
orange-coloured sometimes, as is very plain when they are 
compared with strong daylight. 

10. Secondly, white light is well known to consist of sev- 
eral other colours, as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, 



Notes 247 

and violet; and, further, as violets and purples, with all their 
varieties, may be imitated by mixing blue and red in different 
proportions, and as green also may be compounded m a sim- 
ilar way by mixing blue and yellow, and orange by mixing 
red and yellow, we need not attend to more than the three 
primary colours, red, yellow, and blue ; for, in fact, it is found 
that by mixing these three colours in certain proportions, a sort 
of white, or any colour may be formed ; and there is reason 
to believe that if we had colours equal in brilliancy to the 
prismatic colours, the white so formed would be perfect. 

11. This last observation shews us that white may be 
considered as made up even of two colours only, and we shall 
find it very convenient, in the explanation of the phenomena 
in question, to consider white as so made up, namely, of red 
and green, of yellow and purple, or of blue and orange. These 
colours are called contrasts to each other respectively : their 
apparent brilliancy, when they are placed contiguous to each 
other, is promoted in a remarkable manner, but they cannot 
be mixed together without mutual destruction to their natural 
properties, and an approach to a white or a grey colour. 

12. To understand the experiment above represented on the 
paper, we are first to consider the nature of the shadow D v 
green, as it is in appearance ; that is, we are to consider what 
kind of light or lights can possibly come to this portion of the 
paper which we call the shadow d v ; and here it is plain that 
this space d v is illumined only by the white light ' (I will 
call it) which comes from the small taper a, directly, and also 
by a small quantity of white light from b, not directly, but by 
reflection from the sides of the room or from other objects. 
The direct red light coming from b, through the red glass c, 
is intercepted by D ; and the small quantity of this red light 
which can arrive at the space d v by reflection is not worth 
mentioning ; the green shadow d v, therefore, is illumined by 

' I call it white light because it is nearly so, and because it answers all the purposes 
of perfectly white light in such an experiment, supposed to be made in a room without 
daylight. When actually compared with daylight, it is found to be yellowish, or even 
orange-coloured. 



248 Notes 

a small quantity of white light, and our business is to explain 
why it should appear green to the eye. 

13. Keep in mind that the idea of a perfect shadow excludes 
all light, and that the space D v is an imperfect shadow, illum- 
ined, as we have seen, with a small portion of white light. 
Let this small portion of white light be considered as made up 
of red light and green light, according to what has been stated 
above, in section 12, and the reason of the phenomenon will 
be readily understood. For we must now attend to the strong 
red light which passes through the glass c, and covers the paper 
everywhere, except in the space D v, where it is intercepted : 
the effect of this strong light coming up to the very boundaries 
of the shadow D v is such as to incapacitate the eye from 
seeing at the same time the weaker red light contained in the 
shadow D v, which we have proved to be really of a weak dull 
white colour, but which, because its red light cannot be seen, 
appears green to the eye. 

14. This effect of rendering the organs of perception insen- 
sible to weaker excitations, by strongly exciting those organs, 
is analogous to the constitution of the human frame in many 
instances. Accustom the eye either to much light or to intense 
colours, and, for a time, it will hardly discern anything by a 
dull light or by feeble colours, provided the feeble colours be 
of the same kind with the previous strong ones. Thus, after 
it has been excited by an intense red, for example, it will, for 
a time, be insensible to weak red colours, yet it will still easily 
perceive a weak green or blue, etc., as in the instance before us 
respecting the shadow d v, where the green part of the com- 
pound still affects the eye, after the red has ceased to produce 
any effect, owing to the previous excitation of a stronger red.' 

' This distinction should always be kept in mind, for, unless the eye has been abso- 
lutely injured or weakened by excessive excitation, there is reason to believe that strong 
excitations of it, whether immediately preceding weaker ones, or contemporaneous with 
them, much impro-ve its sensibility in regard to those weaker ones, provided only that 
they be of a different class. If the eye has been excited by a lively red colour, it will 
scarcely perceive a weak red, but it will perceive a weak green much better, on account 
of the previous excitation by the strong red ; and the reason may be that, in looking at 
a red colour, the eye wastes none of that nervous sensibility which is necessary for its 



Notes 249 

15. Nor is this the case only with the eye: it is the same 
with every other sense ; precise instances of this kind in regard 
to the taste, the smell, the touch, etc., will occur plentifully to 
every one. 

16. I consider this solution of the appearances of the col- 
ours as perfectly satisfactory. Here it is applied only to one 
instance, but it is equally applicable to all the rest ; and it 
appears to me to account for all the difficulties which seem 
to have embarrassed Count Rumford, in his very ingenious and 
entertaining paper (/%/'/. Trans. 1794, p. I07). Also in Dr. 
Priestley's History of Optics^ p. 436, there is a curious chap- 
ter, containing the observations of philosophers on blue and 
green shadows; the true cause of these shadows is not, I think, 
there mentioned ; and it may be entertaining to read that 
chapter with these principles in the mind. 

17. When the sun has been near setting on a summer even- 
ing, 1 have often observed most beautiful blue shadows upon 
a white marble chimney-piece. In this case, the weak white 
light of the evening, which illumines the shaded part of the 
marble, is to be considered as compounded of two colours, 
orange and blue. The direct orange rays of the sun at this 
time render the orange part invisible, and leave the blue in 
perfection. 

18. And in the same way is to be explained that beautiful 
and easy experiment mentioned by Count Rumford (p. 103, 
Phil. Trans. 1794,) where a burning candle in the daytime 
produces two shadows, and one of them of a most beautiful 
blue colour. The experiment is the more valuable, as it may 
be made at anytime of the day with a burning candle. Almost 
darken a room, and then by means of a lighted candle and 
a little daylight produce two shadows of any small object, as of 

seeing a green colour ; and the same reasoning holds in all other cases where the colours 
are contrasts to each other. For such colours seem incapable of mixing with each other, 
in the proper sense of the word, as when red and yellow are mixed together, and pro- 
duce a compound evidently partaking of the obvious properties of the two ingredients. 
When contrasts are mixed together, as red and green, these colours seem destructive 
of each other, and effect a compound approaching to whiteness. Similar observations 
may be made on the other senses. 



250 



Notes 



a pencil, etc., one from the candle, and another from the day- 
light received at a small opening of one of the window-shut- 
ters ; the light of the candle will appear orange-coloured in the 
daytime, and so will that shadow of the body which belongs 
to or is made by the daylight-, but the shadow of the body 
made by the candle will surprise any person, by being of a fine 
blue. 

19. More than once I have been agreeably struck with this 
appearance, produced unintentionally when I have been writnig 
by candle-light on a winter's morning ; upon the daylight being 
let in, the shadow of my pen and fingers in the orange-light 
of the candle, were beautifully blue. 

20. I suppose there is such a thing as the harmony of 
colours, of which painters speak so much ; according to the 
explanation here given, our key to the solution of every case 
of harmony and of contrast is to consider what is the other 
colour, simple or compound, which, joined to a given one, 
simple or compound, will constitute white. Thus red requires 
green ; yellow, purple ; blue, orange ; and vice versa, the mix- 
tures in proper proportions will be white. 

21. Sir Isaac Newton (prop. 6, part 2, of book i, Optics) 
has given a method forjudging of the colour of the compound 
in any known mixture of primary colours, but it is not easy, 
even for mathematicians, to put his rules in practice. The 
gentleman who consulted me on this subject of shadows has 
been accustomed, for a long time, to assist his memory, when 
he is painting, by the use of the simple diagram [Fig. 28]. 
Let R, Y, B represent the three uncompounded colours, red, 
yellow, blue ; and let o, G, P represent the compounds orange, 
green, and purple ; it is evident that, to make a deeper orange, 
we must add more red ; and to make a bluer green, we must 
add more blue ; and to make the purple redder, we must add 
more red, and vice versa : but besides this, the diagram puts us 
in mind that G is the contrast to R, and that, therefore, those 
two colours cannot be mixed without approaching to a dull 
whiteness or greyness ; and the same may be said of Y and P 
and of B and o. These colours are also contrasts to each other ; 



Notes 



251 



by mixture they destroy each other, and produce a whiteness, 
or greyness, according as they are more or less perfect ; but 
when kept distinct, they are found to make each other look 
more brilliant by being brought close together : and all this is 
agreeable to what is said in section 11, and in the note to 
section 14. 

22. Sir Isaac Newton observes that he had never been able 
to produce a perfect white by the mixture of only two primary 




Fig. 28. 

colours, and seems to doubt whether such a white can be com- 
pounded even of three. He tells us that one part of red lead 
and five parts of verdigris composed a dun colour, like that 
of a mouse ; but there is nothing in all this which militates 
agamst the explanation here given of the cause of the coloured 
shadows of bodies ; for even supposing that there did not exist 
in nature any two bodies of such colours as to form perfect 
whiteness by their mixture, or, to go still further, supposing 
that no two prismatic colours of the sun could form a com- 
pound perfectly white, still the facts and reasonings here stated 
respecting the mixtures of such colours as are called contrasts 
are so near the truth that they furnish a satisfactory account 
of the appearances of the colours of the shadows which we 
have been considering. The terms by which we are accus- 
tomed to denominate colours have not a very accurate or precise 



252 



Notes 



meaning, and particularly those terms which denote colours 
that are known to be mixtures of others, as green, purple, and 
orange. Neither the prismatic green nor the colour of any 
known green body may, perhaps, combine with red so as to 
make actually an accurate white, and yet the existence or 
composition of such a green may not be impossible. The 
philosophical reader will clearly perceive that no argument 
of any weight can be drawn from considerations of this sort 
against this theory of coloured shadows. 

23. Every one knows that red colours and yellow colours 
mixed together, in different proportions, produce orange col- 
ours of various kinds : also that reds and blues produce purples 
and violets ; and, lastly, that blues and yellows produce greens 
in great variety ; but it is not so generally known that green, 
purple, and orange colours are, as it were, almost annihilated 
by mixture, and much improved by contiguity with red, yel- 
low, and blue colours respectively. 

The little diagram [Fig. 28 j suggests all these things to 
the memory, and a great many more of the same kind ; and, 
therefore, must be extremely useful to the artist who is endeav- 
ouring to produce certain effects by contrast, harmony, etc., 
but it should always be carefully remembered that it contributes 
nothing to the proof of any of the truths here advanced; the 
proof rests upon the reasons given for each of them respect- 
ively. 



STbe fiitoer?ibe pte0 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S A 



NOV 15 190? 



3^epton 



THE ART 

OF 

Landscape 
Gardening 

NOLEN 



